"LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 

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UNITED TESTIMONY 



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( «jo jpwlrd JJdokpitat Scholars 



TO 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



BY 






Key. N. L. KIGBY. 



"Gather up tho fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."— Jesus. 
Jo ux vi. 12. 

"Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee."— Luke xix. 22. 



//0o0l^ : 



PHILADELPHIA: 

Gbast, Faihes & Rodgeks, Printers, 52 & 54. N. Sixth St 

1875, 

T 



a 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

REV. N. L. RIGBY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



PREFACE 



The following pages are to shed light on the subject of 
Christian Baptism — not indeed by the presentation of orig- 
inal thought on the part of the author, but simply by put- 
ting the thoughts of others in readable form. In other 
words the light is borrowed from many stars in the literary 
firmament. It is, however, just as real, "For whatsoever 
doth make manifest is light ;" while the method of 
uniting these scattered rays may make it even more effec- 
tive. For as it illumines the path of inquiry, it will dazzle 
and blind the eyes of criticism. Nor can it be said, the 
light is colored by the medium through which it passes, 
for the writer has chosen not to express any thought in his 
own words. He has also scrupulously avoided any selec- 
tions from Baptist authors — not because Baptist scholarship 
carries less authority, but because the testimony of oppo- 
nents rather than that of friends is less likely to be dispu- 
ted. " Since all will allow that the testimony of an adver- 
sary is good against himself."* And need I say that the 

* Dr. Owen's Def. of Scrip. Ords., p, 158. 



IV PREFACE. 



number of these witnesses must have weight with the un- 
prejudiced reader? For if ten concessions add force to ar- 
gument, one hundred do much the more. "As when a 
hundred facts exhibit one and the same phenomenon, the 
expression of this phenomenon, in its generality, is the ex- 
pression of a principle in philosophy ; or, as when a hun- 
dred verses speak one and the same truth, this truth, sus- 
tained on the basis of a multiple testimony, may by means 
of one brief and comprehensive affirmation become the 
article of a creed."* It may also give additional weight to 
know that the number embraced in this plan of uniting the 
testimony j without notes or comments, is not over one to fifty 
of the passages rejected for want of fitness. 

Nor does it militate against the argument that these au- 
thors failed to practice what they taught. For if we turn 
to the last chapter we shall readily discover that the reasons 
given are unscriptural. The plea based on ecclesiastical au- 
thority is Roman Catholicism. That based on a theory of 
liberty, latitude, expedience, &c, is even worse. " Since want 
of faithfulness to one truth, professed in theory, involves 
treachery to all the rest."f For if a man may renounce 
one truth in revelation, and yet be sinless, he may renounce 
two; if two, four; if four, eight; if eight, half the Bible; 
if half, the whole; and yet be innocent."{ The plea based 
on the common truism, " Baptism non-essential to salva- 



* Dr. Chalmers, Inst, Vol. i., p. 291. 
t Br. J. Waddington, Emmaus, p. 261. 
X J. A. James, Oh. in Earn., p. 12. 



PEEFACE. 



tion " amounts to saying, " If it were essential to my salva- 
tion, I love myself well enough to take up the cross ; but 
since it is not essential to salvation, I do not love the Sa- 
viour well enough to obey His command, and follow His 
example." 

But enough — and now with the prayer that this little 
volume of united testimony may shed its light wherever it 
goes, and dissipate the darkness of ignorance, prejudice or 
doubt from many a mind, I commit it to the public. 

N. L. EIGBY. 



Winfield, Kansas, Aug. 1, 1875. 



CONTENTS. 



-+■ 



CHAPTEE I. page 
Christian Baptism as introduced by John, 9 

CHAPTEE II. 
Christian Baptism as adopted by Jesus, 13 

CHAPTEE III. 
Christian Baptism as commanded in Scripture, 17 

CHAPTEE IV. 

Christian Baptism as obeyed by the Disciples, 23 

CHAPTEE V. 

Christian Baptism as typified at Pentecost, 27 

CHAPTEE VI. 

Christian Baptism as a figure of Christ's sufferings, 29 

CHAPTEE VII. 

Christian Baptism as a figure of death and resurrection, 32 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

Christian Baptism as a symbol of regeneration, 35 

CHAPTEE IX. 

Christian Baptism as prefigured at the Eed Sea, 39 

vii 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE X. page 
Christian Baptism as prefigured by the Ark, 44 

CHAPTEE XI. 

Christian Baptism as illustrated by divers baptisms,... 46 

CHAPTEE XII. 
Christian Baptism as the door to the local Church, 50 

CHAPTEE XIII. 

Christian Baptism as related to the Lord's Supper, 54 

CHAPTEE XIV. 

Christian Baptism as to its nature from baptizo, 59 

CHAPTEE XV. 
Christian Baptism as corroborated in history, 65 

CHAPTEE XVI. 
Christian Baptism as perverted into a saving ordi- 
nance, 72 

CHAPTEE XVII. 

Christian Baptism as unscripturally applied to infants, 77 

CHAPTEE XVIII. 

Christian Baptism as substituted by pouring and 

sprinkling, 88 

CHAPTEE XIX. 
Christian Baptism as preserved by the Baptists, 96 

CHAPTEE XX. 
Christian Baptism as falsely viewed — a plea for incon- 
sistency, 103 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



i. 

AS INTRODUCED BY JOHN. 

Its beginning, Matt. iii. 1 — Its" condition, Matt. iii. 2, 8, 11, 
repentance— Its design, Matt. iii. 11 ; Mark i. 4, 5, unto 
repentance and remission of sins, i. e. because of them — Its 
authority, Matt. i. 25— Its mode, Mark i. 10, Baptisma, 
immersion — Corroborated. 




T is an old controversy whether the 
Baptism of John was a new institu- 
tion, or an imitation of the baptism 
of proselytes as practiced by the Jews. 
Bat at all events there is no record of such a 
rite, conducted in the name of, and with re- 
ference to a particular person before the ministry 
of John.* In former times proselytes coming 
over from heathenism to the Jewish religion, 
used to wash themselves, which is a very different 
thing from baptism, or persons being washed by 

* Dr. Smith. Bib. Die. Art. Jesus Christ. 

9 



10 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

one another.* Consequently it is more likely 
that the Jews took the hint of proselyte baptism 
from the Christians after our Saviour's time than 
that He borrowed His baptism from theirs, f 
We find no account of baptism as a distinct re- 
ligious rite before the mission of John.J The 
original institution of admitting Jews to the 
Covenant and strangers to the same, prescribed 
no other rite than circumcision. No account of 
any other is found in the Old Testament, none 
in the Apocrypha, New Testament, Targums of 
Onkelos, of Jonathan, of Joseph the Blind, or 
in the works of any other Targumist, excepting 
Pseudo-Jonathan, whose work belongs to the 
seventh or eighth century. No evidence is 
found in Philo, Josephus, or any of the earlier 
Christian w r riters. But how could an allusion 
to such a rite have escaped them all if it were 
as common, and as much required by usage as 
circumcision ? In fine we are destitute of any 
early testimony to the practice of proselyte 
baptism antecedently to the Christian era. And 
it is difficult to see how we can avoid the con- 
clusion that such a custom was older than the 
third century. 

* G. Benson, D.D. f Home's Introd. Art. Proselytes. 
% Richard Watson, Bib. Die. Art. Bap. 



AS INTRODUCED BY JOHN. 11 

The baptism of John and of Jesus, then, I must 
regard as being a special appointment of heaven* 
— as a new law of the gospel church. f The law 
and the prophets were until John : since that 
time the Kingdom of God is preached, and every 
man presseth into it. J The baptism of John, 
whence was it ? from heaven, or of men ? I 
answer, it is described equally with the baptism 
of Christ, as a divine institution, and as per- 
formed under divine authority.! And it is very 
certain that the ministry of John was precisely 
the same as that which was afterwards commit- 
ted to the apostles. For their baptism was not 
different, though it was administered by dif- 
ferent hands ; but the sameness of their doctrine 
shows their baptism to have been the same — ' 
both baptized unto repentance, both unto remis- 
sion of sins ; both baptized in the name of 
Christ, from whom repentance and remission of 
sins proceed. And if any difference be sought 
for in the word of God, the only difference that 
will be found is, that John baptized in the name 
of Him who was to come, the apostles in the 

* Prof. Moses Stuart on Bap., p. 140, Nashville Ed. 

f Poole on Matt. iii. 15. 

X Luke xvi. 16. 

§ Knapp's Theo. p. 484. 



12 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

name of Him who had already manifested Him- 
self.* 

Now, that the baptism of John was by plung- 
ing the body, seems to appear from those things 
which are related of him ; namely, that he bap- 
tized in Jordan, that he baptized in Enon, be- 
cause there was much water there, and that Christ 
being baptized, came up out of the water ; to 
which that seems to be parallel, Acts viii. 38, 
Philip and the Eunuch went down into the water, 
&c\ For w T hat need would there have been 
either for the Baptist's resorting to great con- 
fluxes of water, or of Philip and the Eunuch's 
going down into this stream, were it not that the 
baptism both of one and the other was to be per- 
formed by an immersion, a very little water, 
as it doth with us, sufficing for an affusion, or 
sprinkling.J 

* John Calvin, Hinton's Hist., p. 68. 

f Dr. Lightfoot in A. Clark's Com. on Mark. 

% Dr. Towerson, Sac. Bap. part iii. pp. 53-60. 



II. 



AS ADOPTED BY JESUS. 



For what purpose, Matt. iii. 15— Thus recognizing John's 
Baptism— Setting us a Divine pattern— Declaring the end 
of His mission — The Divine approval. Matt. iii. 16,17 — 
A lesson of loyalty. 



j^_iss£j |HE Forerunner descends with his 
ifg J0k Redeemer into the rapid waters of the 
now sacred river* — and Jesus was 
baptized of John in Jordan. f The 
pure waters laved His sinless body, and the 
Saviour, straightway coming up out of the 
stream stands on the bank in prayer.J Heaven 
once again opened at the baptism of Jesus — 
primarily for Him, and, through Him, for all 
mankind. He was hereby brought into per- 
sonal relation with that kingdom of God, the 
future subjects of which were to be set apart in 
like manner, and entered into communication 
with an impure world, whose sins He was to 
bear. Thus the baptism of John was not only 

* Bishop Elliot, Hist. Lee, p. 108. 

t Scripture. 

t J. D. Burns, Fam. Treaa., p. 212, for 1861. 

13 



14 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

applicable to Jesus, but attained its real mean- 
ing and object only by the baptism of Jesus. 
Thus it became the symbol of His consecration 
unto death, for the salvation of the world. 

If we inquire into the Lord's own view of the 
necessity of baptism, in His own case, He 
calls it a fulfilling of all righteousness* — all 
parts of righteousness; and therefore this, also, 
the earnest of the other greater parts. By a 
narrow view of righteousness, it would seem 
that John should be baptized by Jesus. By a 
comprehensive view of all righteousness, the mat- 
ter was inverted. f And every answer to the 
inquiry, why Jesus suffered Himself to be bap- 
tized, may be considered unsatisfactory, which 
either regards baptism as necessary for the Lord, 
in the same sense as it was for the sinful Israel- 
ites; or, on the other hand, sees in this fact only 
a compliance with an existing usage of no special 
importance to Himself.J Our Lord, I think, 
would be baptized, that He might conciliate 
authority to the baptism of John, that by His 
own example He might commend and sanctify 
our baptism, that men might not be loth to come 

* Lange, Matt. iii. 13-17, and Luke iii. 1-22. 
t Bengel's Gnomon, Matt. iii. 15. 
J Lange, Luke iii. 1-22. ~ 



AS ADOPTED BY JESUS. 15 

to the baptism of the Lord, seeing the Lord was 
not backward to come to the baptism of a ser- 
vant, that by His baptism He might represent 
the future condition of both Himself and His 
followers : first humble, then glorious ; now 
mean and low, then glorious and exalted ; that 
represented by immersion, this by emersion — 
and finally, to declare by His voluntary sub- 
mission to baptism, that He would not delay 
the delivering up of Himself to be immersed in 
the torrents of hell, yet with a certain faith and 
hope of emerging.* Thus he chose to give the 
sanction of His example to the baptism of John, 
as to a divine ordinancef — permitted the con- 
tinuance of John's baptism as harmonizing with 
His own designs. The import of the rite being 
the same, whether administered by John him- 
self, or the disciples of Jesus. J 

This ceremony, then, Christ adopted — for no 
ceremony could be better adapted to Christ's 
purpose than this — and He made it absolutely 
binding upon all His followers to submit to it.§ 
While an ordinance of which the Lord Jesus 

* Witsius, from Pengilly, p. 17. 
t Albert Barnes, D.D., Matt. iii. 15. 
X Coleman, Christ. Antiq. 
I Ecce Homo, p. 96. 



16 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

Christ Himself partook is not to be slightly- 
esteemed ; an ordinance to which the great 
Head of the Church submitted ought to be ever 
honorable in the eyes of professing Christians.* 
If it became Christ, as our surety and our ex- 
ample, perfectly to fulfil all righteousness, it 
becomes us to walk in all the commandments 
and ordinances of God, without exception, and 
to attend on every divine institution, according 
to the meaning and intent of it, as long as it 
continues in force.. Thus far Christ's example 
is obligatory.f Then let our Lord's submitting 
to baptism teach us a holy exactness in the ob- 
servance of those institutions which owe their 
obligation merely to a divine command. Surely 
thus it becometh all His followers to fulfil all 
righteousness.J Hence the pattern of Christ 
and the Apostles is more to me than all the 
human wisdom in the world. § 

* Rev. J. C. Ryle on Matt. iii. 14-17. 

t Scott, Com. on Matt. iii. 15. 

J John Wesley on Matt. iii. 16. § Polhill. 




Ill, 



AS COMMANDED IN SCBIPTURE. 

In Matt, xxviii. 18, 19 ; Mark xvi. 15, 16 ; Acts x. 48.— Com- 
manded, of course, to be obeyed— Loyalty to King Jesus 
requires this — obeyed too as commanded— The Command 
rests on all power— Obedience alone can claim the promise : 
Lo, I am with you, &c. 

HE command to baptize is co-exten- 
sive with the command to preach the 
Gospel.* And the law of Christ re- 
quires that all who believe the Gospel 
should be baptized.f Then whoever know- 
ingly and wilfully rejects baptism, treats with 
indifference a precept of the most exalted Mes- 
senger of God, yea of the Lord Himself, and is 
guilty of a much greater crime than those who 
rejected the baptism of John. J For if it be 
once shown to possess the authority of the Su- 
preme Lawgiver, it will not be disputed that 
our first and immediate duty is compliance. 
What He appoints it is ours to observe. Is it, 

* Dr. Smith, Bib. Dio. 

t Dr. Doddridge, Mis. Works, p. 490. 

% Quoted by Wallace on Bap. p. 85. 

2 17 



18 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

or is it not a Divine institution ? * If it be 
commanded, it matters nothing, whether the ob- 
ligation be moral or natural, positive or in- 
stituted. He who places before him the will of 
God as the rule of his life, will not refine or 
even dwell much upon this distinction. The 
ordinances of Christianity, it is true, are all of 
them significant. Their meaning, and even their 
use, is not obscure. But were it otherwise — was 
the design of any positive institution inexplica- 
ble; did it appear to have been proposed only 
as an exercise of obedience, — it is not for us to 
hesitate in our compliance, f With the dis- 
covery of the mind of God, inquiry ends and 
obedience commences. I can conceive of noth- 
ing more preposterous, than for the professed 
servants of Christ to be squandering their powers 
of invention in devising and vindicating plans 
of their own. J Let a precept be never so dif- 
ficult to obey, or never so distasteful to flesh and 
blood, yet if I see it is God's command, my soul 
says, It is good ; let me obey it till I die. § 

It will be readily allowed, also, that for any 

*Dr. Wardlaw, Inf. Bap. p. 131. 

fDr. Paley, Prim. Church Mag. 1854, p. 311. 

{ Dr. Wardlaw on Nat. Est. p. 56, 60. 

£ Dr. Cotton Mather. Life by Dr. Jenning, p. 118. 



AS COMMANDED IN SCRIPTURE. 19 

one to abstain from baptism, when he knows it 
is an institution of Christ, and that it is the will 
of Christ that he should subject himself to it, is 
such an act of disobedience to His authority, as 
is inconsistent w T ith true faith. * He did not 
say, indeed, that a man could not be saved 
without baptism, but He has strongly implied 
that where this is neglected, knowing it to be a 
command of the Saviour, it endangers the salva- 
tion of the soul, f At all events, if Christ Him- 
self who giveth salvation do require baptism, it 
is not for us to sound and examine Him, 
whether unbaptized persons may be saved, but 
seriously to do what is required. J 

In this day, however, there are very few in 
the world who judge a diligent observation of 
Divine institutions to be a thing of any great 
importance. By some they are neglected; by 
some corrupted with additions of their own ; 
and by some they are exalted above their proper 
place and use, and turned into an occasion of 
neglecting more important duties. § But these 
things ought not so to be. For God had the 

* Doddridge, Mis. Works, p. 490. 

f Barnes, Mark xvi. 16. 

% Hooker in Walls His. Inf. Bap. Vol. iv. p. 251. 

£ Dr. Owen on Heb. i. 6, 



20 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

wisest reasons why He would have an appoint- 
ment administered in this or the other manner. 
It is not lawful therefore, for men to alter any- 
thing, or to mutilate the appointment. Thus 
the sacraments are to be used, not according to 
our own pleasure, but in the manner appointed 
by God.* For nothing is a privilege in the 
religious sense, but what God has made such, 
and He has made nothing such, except in His 
own way and on His own terms. Baptism is a 
privilege when administered and received in the 
manner appointed by Him, but in no other. 
When this ordinance is received in any other 
manner, it is plainly no obedience to any com- 
mand of His, and therefore has no promise — 
and let me add, no encouragement to hope for a 
blessing, f It is then most dangerous and pre- 
sumptuous to add any ceremony, or to join any 
service, on any pretence, unto Heaven's appoint- 
ment.! And how can the despisers of baptism 
expect the approbation of the Lord, when He 
Himself, although He did not need baptism, so 
highly honored the invitation of John as to be 

*Buddeus, Inst. Theol. Mor. Part I. cv. ? 18, Part II. oil, 
?50. 
t Dwight's Sermons, Vol. IV. p. 343. 
t Archibald Hall, Gosp. Worship, Vol. I. p, 326. , . 



AS COMMANDED IN SCRIPTURE. 21 

baptized by him, amid the most evident tokens 
of the Divine favor.* It is worthy of remark 
that Jesus has made baptism of so much im- 
portance, f And who is the daring, insolent 
worm that will presume to dispute the authority, 
or change the ordinance of Him who is given to 
be Head over all things to the Church ? J 

Now what the command of Christ was in 
this particular, cannot well be doubted of by 
those who shall consider the words of Christ (in 
the Commission) concerning it, and the practice 
of those times, whether in the practice of John, 
or of our Saviour. Now the words of Christ 
are, that they should baptize, or dip, those whom 
they made disciples to Him — for so, no doubt, 
the word baptism properly signifies, — and such 
as was the practice of those times in baptizing, 
such in reason are we to think our Saviour's 
command to have been concerning it.§ Ac- 
cording then to the principle that nothing can 
be lawfully performed, much less required, in 
the affairs of religion, which is not either com- 
manded by God in the Scripture, or at least, re- 

* Quoted by Wallace, p. 85. 

t Barnes, Mark xvi. 16. 

J Archb. Hall, Gosp. Worsp. Vol. I. p. 325. 

§ Dr. Towerson, Sac. Bap. Part III. pp. 53-56. 



22 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

commended by a laudable example, the baptism 
of infants, and the sprinkling of water in bap- 
tism, must be exterminated from the Church. * 

* Bishop Sanderson, De Obliga Cons. Prelec, IV. § 17, 18, 



IV. 



AS OBEYED BY THE DISCIPLES. 

In the spirit of loyalty to Christ — According to His example 
and command — By multitude on the day of Pentecost, (Acts 
ii. 41); by the Ethiopian Enuch, (Acts viii. 36, 38); by 
Paul, (Acts ix. 18) ; by Cornelius and others, (Acts x. 47, 
48) ; by Lydia and household, (Acts xvi. 14, 15) ; by Phi- 
lippian jailor and household, (Acts vi. 33, 34) ; by Cris- 
pus, Gaius and household of Stephanus, (1 Cor. xiv. 14-16). 

ISSUMING the truth of our conclusion 
in the last chapter that baptism is an 
ordinance of perpetual obligation in the 
Christian Church, it does seem extra- 
ordinary that Christians, in the honest and dili- 
gent study of the New Testament, should be 
unable to discover who are to be baptized, or in 
what manner the rite is to be performed. For 
upon baptism we have more full and precise 
information than we have upon any other ritual 
observance.* As administered by the Apostles, 
baptism had a clear and well understood signifi- 
cance, and their authority determined at once 

* Dr. Halley, Cong. Lee, p. 92. 

23 




24 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

how and to whom it was to be administered.* 
Hence the Church adhered rigidly to the prin- 
ciple, as constituting the true purport of the 
baptism ordained by Christ — that no one can 
be a member of the communion of saints, but 
by his own solemn vow made in the presence of 
the Church. f And when the Lord commanded 
that disciples should be baptized, the Apostles, 
through those things which had gone before, 
could have understood nothing else than that 
men should be immersed in water ; nor did they 
in truth, understand anything else but immer- 
sion, as is evident from the testimony of the sa- 
cred writings.^ This is shown by the very 
meaning of the Greek words baptizo, baptisma, 
baptismos used to designate the rite. Then 
again, by the analogy of the baptism of John, 
which was performed in the Jordan. Further- 
more by the New Testament comparisons of 
baptism with the passage through the Red Sea, 
(1 Cor. x. 2), with the flood, (1 Peter iii. 21), 
with a bath, (Eph. v. 26 ; Titus iii. 5), with a 
burial and resurrection, (Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 
12). Finally, by the general usage of ecclesias- 

* Kitto, Vol. I., p. 294. 

| Dr. Bunsen on Hippolytus and his Age. 

t Dr. Theophilus C. Storr. 



AS OBEYED BY THE DISCIPLES. 25 

tical antiquity, which was always immersion, as 
it is to this day in the Oriental and also the 
Grseco-Russian Churches.* 

It appears not that the three thousand men- 
tioned in the Acts of the Apostles, who were 
converted at the first sermons of Peter, were 
baptized any other way ; and the great number 
of those converts is no proof that they were bap- 
tized by sprinkling, as some have conjectured. 
For besides that nothing obliges us to say that 
they were all baptized on the same day.f 
Though, if distributed among the twelve Apos- 
tles and those of the one hundred and twenty 
disciples, who were competent to the work, it is 
not itself absolutely inconceivable.^ As to con- 
venience — I must candidly, as I do cheerfully 
acknowledge, that there must have been abun- 
dance of water in Jerusalem to have washed 
away the blood of 250,000 lambs slain at one 
Passover. And how to reconcile the sufficiency 
of water for such a sacrifice with the accounts 
of its scarcity, may not be easy ; but that suffi- 
cient water must have been in Jerusalem, I am 
bound to acknowledge. § And I do wonder at 

* Dr. P. Schaff, Ch. Hy., p. 568. 

f Bishop Bossuet, from Stennet's Ans. to Russen, p. 175. 

% Stacey. § Dr. Halley, pp. 216, 218. 



26 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

the disingenuous artifice of learned men, who, 
knowing well the nature of the country, have 
not scrupled to make the most of this worthless 
argument ?* A land of brooks of water, of foun- 
tains, and depths that spring out of the valleys 
and hills. Deut. viii. 7. 

* The same, p. 312, 313. 



V. 

AS TYPIFIED AT PENTECOST. 

Prophesied in Matt. iii. 11 ; Mark i. 8 ; Luke iii. 16 ; John 
j. 33.— Fulfilled at Pentecost, Acts ii. 1-4. Again, in 
Samaria, l as at first,' Acts x. 44-46 ; xi. 15-17. — a No other 
instances. — A baptism because an overwhelming.— Fill- 
ing ail the house.' ' 

HE Spirit, under the Gospel, is com- 
pared to water ; and that not to a 
little measure to sprinkle or bedew, 
but to baptize the faithful in.* For 
the Lord saith, Ye shall be immersed in the 
Holy Spirit not many days after this, not in part 
the grace, but in all-sufficing power. For as he 
who sinks down in the waters and is immersed, 
is surrounded on all sides by the waters, so also 
they were completely immersed in the Holy 
Spirit. f Baptism in the Holy Spirit, then, is 
immersion into the pure waters of the Holy 
Spirit, or a rich and abundant communication 
of His gifts. For he upon whom the Holy 




• Bishop Reynolds' Works, p. 226. 
t Cyril of Jerusalem, Ins. 8. 



27 



28 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

Spirit is poured out is, as it were, immersed in- 
to Him.* 

The basis of this usage is very plainly to be 
found in the designation, by baptizo, of the idea 
of overwhelming j i. e. of surrounding on all sides 
with fluid. f Those that are baptized with the 
Spirit, are as it were, plunged into that heavenly 
flame whose searching energy devours all their 
dross, tin, and base alloy. J And in this sense 
the apostles are truly said to be baptized ; for 
the house in which this was done, was filled with 
the Holy Ghost, so that the apostles seemed to 
be plunged into it as into a fish-pool.§ Thus, 
the words of our Saviour were made good, Ye 
shall be baptized (plunged or covered) with the 
Holy Spirit as John baptized with water. || 
John only dipped men in water, but ye shall be 
imbued with the grace of the Holy Spirit. If He 
will deluge you ungrudgingly, with the graces 
of the Spirit.** 

* Gurtlerus, Inst. Theol. c. 33, § 108. 

f Prof. Moses Stuart on Bap., p. 74. 

J Bishop Hopkins' Works, p. 519. 

§ Casaubon. 

j| H. Dodwell, Gen. Del. of Christians, part 2, ch. 4, § 7. 

1[ Dr. Bloomfield. 

■** Theophylact. 



VI. 




AS A FIGURE OF CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 



Recorded in Matt. xx. 22, 23, Luke xii. 50.— Paraphrased by 
Doddridge — More than a Sprinkling — Illustrated in Psalms 
xlii. 6, 7; lxxxviii. 7 : 16, 17. — Also in Classical writers — 
Represents the Divine wrath against sin— Set forth in His 
own baptism. 

RE you able to drink the bitter cup of 
which I am about to drink so deep, 
and to be baptized with the baptism — 
plunged into that sea of sufferings — 
with which I am shortly to be baptized, and as 
it were, overwhelmed for a time? I have 
indeed a most dreadful baptism to be baptized 
with, and I know that I shall shortly be bathed, 
as it were, in blood, and plunged in the most 
overwhelming distress.* 

Here, I must acknowledge, our Baptist 
brethren have the advantage ; for our Re- 
deemer's sufferings must not be compared to a 
few drops of water sprinkled on the face, for He 
was plunged into distress, and environed with 

*Dr. P. Doddridge, Parap. on Luke xiii. 50. 

29 



30 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

sorrows.* Our Lord was filled with sufferings 
within, and covered with them without, f He 
was baptized with the baptism of His suffer- 
ings, bathed in blood, and plunged in death. % 
And this metaphor of immersion in water, as 
expressive of being overwhelmed by affliction, 
is frequent, both in Scriptures and in Classical 
writers. § O my God, says the Psalmist, my 
soul is cast down within me. All thy weaves and 
thy billows are gone over me.|| Thy wrath 
lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me 
with all thy waves. Thy fierce wrath goeth 
over me; thy terrors have cut me off. They 
come round about me daily like water. Tf Im- 
mersion into water then is to be considered as 
exhibiting the dreadful abyss of Divine justice, 
in which Christ for our sins was for a time, as it 
were, absorbed, as in David, His type, He com- 
plains, "I am come into deep waters where the 
floods overflow me."** Our Lord might indeed 
by a strong figure of speech be said to have been 

* Sir H. Trelawney, on Luke xii. 50. 

t John Wesley. 

% Hervey, Thcron, Vol. II. p. 150. 

I Dr. Bloomfield, Gr. Test, Vol. I. p. 97. 

|| Ps. xlii. 6, 7. 

% Ps. lxxxviii. 7, 16, 17. 

** Wxtsius, from Peng., p. 23. 



AS A FIGUKE OF CHRIST^ SUFFERINGS. 31 

immerged in sufferings, when He endured the 
wrath of God as the propitiation for our sins.* 
And there is peculiar fitness in His describing 
His agony and death as a baptism with which 
He should be baptized. A change was to take 
place ; and for the bringing about of that 
change, immersion in a deep ocean of trouble 
was actually indispensable. He must descend 
into darkness, that the waves and the storms 
might go over Him. It was needful that He 
should be covered by them. And the emerging 
and immersion followed so closely one on the 
other, that you cannot better describe the great 
work, than by saying of our Lord that He had 
a baptism to be baptized with . He was plunged 
in the raging waters, and then quickly with- 
drawn, f He was baptized of John, then, to 
signify that He was sent that He might be 
baptized, that is, immersed in death, and that 
He might wash away our sins with His own 
blood. J And here our Lord intimates the pur- 
pose for which He had taken upon Him our 
nature ; and foresees the hour when the deep 
waters of anguish should go even over His soul. § 

* Scott, Com. on Matt. xx. 20-23. 

t Dr. H. Melville, on Luke xii. 50. 

I Archb. Sumner, Expos. Lee. on Luke xii. 49, 50. 

JHayne's Cyclopedia, Vol. I. p. 181. 




VII. 

AS A FIGURE OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 

First taught by Paul— Rom, vi. 3, 4,— Reiterated, 1 Cor. 
xv. 29. — Fulfilled only by immersion— This point ought 
to be frankly admitted, and indeed cannot be denied with 
any show of reason,* 

N order to understand the figurative 
use of baptism, we must bear in mind 
the well-known fact that the candidate 
in the primitive Church was immersed 
in water and raised out of it again.f If baptism 
had been then performed as it is now among us, we 
should never have so much as heard of this form 
of expression, of dying and rising again, in this 
rite. J That it has been changed is indeed a cala- 
mity, for it placed before the eyes most aptly the 
symbolical meaning of baptism. § On this ac- 
count I could wish that such as are to be bap- 
tized should be completely immersed in the water, 

* Edinburgh Reviewers. 
fTholuck on Rom. vi. 4, 
t Bishop Hoadly, Rom. vi. 4. 
§ Matthie's Bib. Exp, of Bap, 

32 



FIGURE OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 33 

( ■ — — 

according to the meaning of the word, and ac- 
cording to the signification of the ordinance, not 
because I think it necessary (to salvation) but be- 
cause it would be beautiful to have a full and 
perfect sign of so perfect a thing, as also, without 
doubt it was instituted by Christ.* The learned, 
also, have rightly reminded us that, on account 
of this emblematical meaning of baptism, the rite 
of immersion ought to have been retained in the 
Christian Church. f A more striking symbol 
could not be chosen. J The same plunging into 
water exhibits to our view that dreadful abyss of 
Divine justice, in which Christ, on account of 
our sins, was for a time in a manner swallowed 
up. Abiding under the water, however short 
the time, denotes His descent to hades. Emer- 
sion out of the water presents us with an image 
of that victory which He, though dead, obtained 
over death, even in His own pavilion, that is, the 
sepulchre. § And thanks be to God, which giveth 
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, || 
in like manner the baptism of believers is em- 

* Martin Luther's Works, Vol. II., p. 76. 
f Rosenmuller, Prof, of Theol. at Leipsic. 
X Lange on Inf. Bap. 1834. 
I Tilenus, from Booth, Vol. I., pp. 142, 148. 
|| Scripture. 

3 



34 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

blematical of their own death, burial and resur- 
rection* — Christ the first-fruits ; afterward they 
that are Christ's at His coming, f We are there- 
fore in baptism conformed not only to the death 
of Christ, but also to His burial and resurrection. J 
The fellowship so signified is not merely a fel- 
lowship of humiliation, but also of exaltation ; 
not alone a communion of death and the grave, 
but a communion likewise of resurrection and as- 
cension^ Since therefore, we indeed in water, 
but He in the earth, and we in respect to sin, 
but He in respect to the body was buried, on this 
account He did not say, " planted together in 
death," but " in the likeness of death." || O, strange 
and wonderful transaction ! Not truly did we 
die, nor were we truly buried, nor truly cruci- 
fied did we rise again ; but the imitation was 
in a similitude, while the salvation was in truth.^f 

*MacKnight on Rom. vi. 4. 

f Scripture. 

% Estius, Rom. Cath. 

§ Baumgarten on Acts xix. 1-36. 

|| Chrysostom on Rom. Dis. xi. 

^ Cyril, 4th Century, Institution ii. 




VIII. 

AS A SYMBOL OF EEGENEEATION. 

Taught by Paul, Rom, vi. 4. Col. ii. 12— Alluded to in Titus 
ii . 5— Implied in Acts xix. 2, 3. 

T. PAUL'S view of the Christian life, 
throughout the sixth, seventh, and 
eighth chapters of Romans, is that it 
consists of a death and a resurrection ; 
the new-made Christian dies to sin, to the world, 
to the fleshy and to the Law ; this death he un- 
dergoes at his first entrance into communion 
with Christ, and it is both typified and realized 
when he is buried beneath the baptismal waters. 
But no sooner is he thus dead with Christ, than 
he rises with Him; he is made partaker of 
Christ's resurrection ; he is united to Christ's 
body ; he lives in Christ and to Christ ; he is 
no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.* In 
Romans vi. 4, there is a plain allusion to the 
ancient custom of baptism by immersion ; and 
I agree with Koppe and Rosenmuller, that there 
is reason to regret it should have been abandoned 

* Conybeare and Howson, Vol. II. p. 170. 

35 



36 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

in most Christian Churches, especially as it has 
so evidently a reference to this mystic sense of 
baptism.* Indeed, this passage cannot be un- 
derstood unless it be borne in mind that the 
primitive baptism was by immersion.f For 
we assuredly believe that Paul did not under- 
stand the use of a figure in writing, if he made 
sprinkling to represent burial.J The Germans 
call baptism tauff, from depth, which they call 
tieff in their language ; as if it were proper those 
should be deeply immersed, who are baptized. 
And truly, if you consider what baptism signi- 
fies, you shall see the same thing required ; for 
it signifies that our native character, which is 
full of sin, entirely of flesh and blood as it is, 
may be overwhelmed by divine grace. The 
mode of baptism, therefore, ought to answer to 
the signification of baptism, so that it may show 
forth a sign that is certain and full§ — the con- 
vert being plunged beneath the surface of the 
water to represent his death to the life of sin, 
and then raised from this momentary burial to 
represent His resurrection to the life of right- 

* Dr. Blooinfield, Recens. Synop. on Rom. vi. 4. 
t Conybeare and Howson, Vol. II. p. 169. 
% Dr. G. Stanhope, Rom. vi. 4. 
? Martin Luther Opera, Tom. I., fol. 72. 



AS A SYMBOL OF REGENERATION. 37 

eousness.* For he that is immersed in water, 
which has the power of suffocating, is considered 
as in a state of death ; and likewise as long as 
he continues immersed he is there buried. But 
when he rises out of the water, he rises as it 
were, from a state of death, and begins to live 
afresh. Of what kind this newness of life is, 
baptism also at the same time distinctly repre- 
sents. For as water has the power of washing 
and purifying, it signifies that, in virtue of our 
Lord's' death, the person baptized is cleansed 
from sin, and that he ought to live a new and 
pure life.f And it is impossible to see this 
significant act, in which the convert goes down 
into the water, travel- worn and soiled with dust, 
disappear for one moment, and then emerge 
pure and fresh, without feeling that the symbol 
answers to, and interprets a strong craving of, 
the human heart. It is the desire to wash away 
that which is past and evil. J Hence I repeat, 
the learned have rightly reminded us that, on 
account of this emblematical meaning of bap- 
tism, the rite of immersion ought to have been 
retained in the Christian Church. § For, in 

* Conybeare, Life of Paul, Vol. L, p. 438. 
f Rosenmuller Expl. Epis. ad Eph. in c. iv. 5. 
X F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1st Series, p. 137. 
% Rosenmuller as above. 



38 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

sprinkling the symbolical meaning of the or- 
dinance is wholly lost.* A little water on the 
face may suffice to represent a washing, yet it 
cannot be thought to represent such an entire 
washing as baptism may seem to have been in- 
tended for — while the new birth of a believer 
is more express in immersion. For the believer 
being plunged in the water of baptism, is buried 
with Jesus Christ, as the apostle expresses it ; 
and coming out of the water quits the tomb 
with his Saviour, and more perfectly represents 
the mystery of Jesus Christ who regenerates 
Him. f This solemn and interesting observ- 
ance, then, puts forward high claims on the un- 
derstanding and conscience of every Christian. J 
For what greater shame can there be, than for a 
man to profess himself a Christian man because 
he is baptized, and yet he knoweth not what 
baptism is, nor what the dipping in the water 
doth betoken ? § 

*B,heinhard Ethics, Vol. V. p. 79. 
f Dr. Towerson, Sac. Bap. part 3, pp. 51, 57. 
% E. Bickersteth, on Bap. p. 20. 

§ Arehb. Cranmer, in Sermon on Bap. Ded. to King Ed- 
ward VI., of Eng. 




IX. 

AS PREFIGURED AT THE RED SEA. 

* Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, 
how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed 
through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in the 
cloud and in the sea/' 1 Cor. x. 1, 2. 

HE passage of the Israelites through 
the Red Sea wonderfully agrees with 
our baptism, and represents the grace 
it was designed to express. For as in 
baptism, when performed in the primitive man- 
ner, by immersion and emersion, the persons bap- 
tized are overwhelmed, so in the Mosaic bap- 
tism we have an immersion and an emersion ; 
that, when they descended into the depths of 
the sea ; this, when they went out and came to 
the opposite shore.* But this allegory is ob- 
viously not to be pressed minutely ; for neither 
did they enter the cloud nor were they wetted 
by the water of the sea. They passed under 

* Turretine, Dispu., De Bap. Nubis et Maris, § 24. 

39 



40 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

both, as the baptized passes under water.* 
The cloud and the sea took the fathers out of 
sight, and restored them again to view, and 
this is what the water does to those who are 
baptized. f The cloud hung over the heads of 
the Israelites ; and so the water is over those 
that are baptized. The sea surrounded them 
on each side ; and so the water encompasses 
those that are baptized. J 

On the other hand, it appears necessary to 
add, that all attempts to render the type more 
perfect by means of trifling suppositions, such 
as that drops fell from the cloud on the Israel- 
ites, or that they were sprinkled by the sea, 
must be utterly discarded. § 1. There is not 
the slightest intimation of this in the Old Tes- 
tament. 2. The supposition is contrary to the 
very design of the cloud. It was not a natural 
cloud, but was a symbol of the Divine presence 
and protection. It was not to give rain on the 
Israelites, or on the land, but it w T as to guide, 
and be an emblem of the care of God. 3. It is 
doing violence to the Scriptures to introduce sup- 

* Dean Alford, Gr. Test. 1 Cor. x. 2. 
f Bengel's Gnomon, 1 Cor, x. 2. 
J Grotius on 1 Cor. x. 2. 
g Olshausen on 1 Cor. x. 2. 



AS PBEFIGURED AT THE RED SEA. 41 

positions in this manner without the slightest 
authority. The probability is, that the cloud 
extended over the whole camp of Israel, and 
that to those at a distance it appeared as a pil- 
lar.* This appearance of the Divine presence 
was various, but it is uniformly spoken of as 
itself one — a lofty column rising toward heaven. 
By day it would seem to have expanded as it 
rose, and spread itself as a kind of shade or cur- 
tain between the Israelites and the sun, as the 
Lord is said by it to have ' spread a cloud for, a 
covering/ while by night it exchanged the cloudy 
for the illumined form, and diffused through- 
out the camp a pleasant light.f They were 
baptized unto Moses then thus : they had him 
as their leader in the type of baptism ; for the 
type was this, the being under the cloud, and 
the passing through the sea. j The cloud and 
the sea did for them, in reference to Moses, what 
baptism does for us in reference to Christ.§ 
They had fellowship with Moses both in the 
shadow under the cloud, and in the through- 
passing of the sea; for beholding him going 

* Dr. Albert Barnes, 1 Cor. x. 2. 

t Dr. Fairbairn, Typol. of Scrip., p. 98. 

J Dr. Bloomfield, Crit. Dig., vol. vi., p. 478. 

§ Hodge on 1 Cor. x. 1-3. 



42 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

through first, they themselves also dared the 
waters ; as also with us ; Christ having first died 
and risen, we ourselves also are baptized, imitat- 
ing His death through the immersion, and His 
resurrection through the emersion.* And this 
is the only point of analogy between the cases, 
and it is all the apostle's argument requires, f 
Is it asked then — How were the Israelites bap- 
tized in the cloud and in the sea, seeing they 
were neither immersed — literally — in the sea, 
nor wetted by the cloud ? J It is answered — 
Under the conduct of Moses they received bap- 
tism in figure, by passing under the cloud and 
through the sea.§ When the floods stood up- 
right like walls, and the depths were congealed 
in the heart of the sea, Jehovah led His re- 
deemed children into the depths of the waters, 
and buried them in baptism, in the sea and thick 
covering cloud. He raised them up again, also, 
and guided them by His strength into His holy 
habitation.|| Hence it is concluded that the go- 
ing down of the Israelites into the bottom and 

* Dr. Bloomfield as above. 

t Hodge as above. 

% Witsius GEcon. Feed, liv., c. 10, § 11. 

\ Douay Test. Rom. Cath., 1 Cor. x. 2. 

|| Weiss, (a converted Jew) on Old Test. Scrip. 



AS PREFIGURED AT THE RED SEA. 43 

middle of the sea, and their coming up from 
thence to dry ground, have a great agreement 
with the rite of Christian baptism, as it was ad- 
ministered in the first times.* 

* Gataker, Adv. Miscel., c. iv. 




X. 

AS PREFIGURED BY THE ARK. 

1 Peter iii. 20, 21. 

HE water of baptism is here called the 
antitype to the water of the flood, be- 
cause the flood was a type or emblem 
of baptism in the three following par- 
ticulars : 1. As by building the Ark and entering 
into it, Noah showed his strong faith in the pro- 
mise of God concerning his preservation by the 
very water which was to destroy the antedilu- 
vians for their sins, so by giving ourselves to be 
buried in the water of baptism, we show a like 
faith in God's promise, that though we die and 
are buried, He will save us from death, the 
punishment of sin, by raising us from the dead 
at the last day. 2. As the preserving of Noah 
alive during the nine months he was in the 
flood, is an emblem of the preservation of the 
souls of believers while in the state of the dead, so 
the preserving believers alive while buried in the 
44 



AS PREFIGURED BY THE ARK. 45 

waters of baptism, is a prefiguration of the same 
event. 3. As the water of the deluge destroyed the 
wicked antediluvians, but preserved Noah by- 
bearing up the Ark in which he was shut up 
till the waters were assuaged, and he went out 
of it to live again upon the earth, so baptism 
may be said to destroy the wicked and to save 
the righteous, as it prefigures both these events : 
the death of the sinner it prefigures by burying 
the baptized persons in the water; and the 
salvation of the righteous, by raising the bap- 
tized person out of the water to live a new life.* 
There is, also, a great analogy between salvation 
by the Ark and that by baptism, inasmuch as 
the one did represent and the other doth exhibit 
Christ Himself. f 

* Macknight on 1 Peter iii..20, 21. 
f Dr. Owen on same. 



XI. 




AS ILLUSTRATED BY DIVERS BAPTISMS. 

Hebrews vi. 2. 

IAPHOROUS BAPTISMOUS, the 

Apostle calls divers baptisms, that 
is, various immersions.* And whoever 
considers the number of unclean per- 
sons who daily had need of washing, and he 
who reads the Talmudic treatises concerning 
purifications, and collections of water convenient 
for these purposes, will be easily persuaded that 
Bethesda and other pools at Jerusalem subserved 
this design.f Indeed, under the law, there 
were, as the Apostle speaks, divers baptisms.! 
For the history of Israel and the Law of Moses 
abound with such lustrations.§ In the Levitical 
ritual many baptisms, or immersions of the body 
in the water, were enjoined, as emblematical of 

* Dr. J. Alting, Com. on Heb., p. 260. 

f D'Outreenius. 

% Josiah Conder, Esq. 

a Smith's Bib. Die, Art. Bap. 

46 



AS ILLUSTRATED BY DIVERS BAPTISMS. 47 

that purity of mind, which is necessary to the 
worshiping of God acceptably.* Aaron and his 
sons, on their being consecrated to the priest- 
hood, were to be wholly washed with water, as 
well as sprinkled with blood at the door of the 
tabernacle. Ex. xxix. 4, 21. And for clean- 
sing from various ceremonial uncleanness, also, 
the Israelites were directed to wash themselves. 
Lev. xiii. 54-58 ; xiv. 8, 9 ; xvi. 4, 24 • xxii. 
6. Now Christians are a royal priesthood, and 
they have an initiatory washing, the ordinance of 
baptism to consecrate them to their high and 
holy office.f And as the Jews were ceremonially 
purified, so Christians are emblematically washed 
by the purifying waters of baptism.J Thus we 
have a further instruction on baptism in the 
washings appointed by the law of Moses.§ For 
the baptisms w T ith the Jews were not by sprink- 
ling, but in addition to washing the w T hole 
body, an entire immersion. || They bathed them- 
selves all over.^f Having come from the mar- 
ket, where among a crowd of men, they might 

* Dr. Macknight, Com. on Heb. vi. 2. 

f E. Bickersteth on Bap., pp. 6, 7. 

X Webster and Wilkinson, Diaph. Bap., Heb. vi. 2. 

J E. Bickersteth as above. 

|| Stack, His. Bap., p. 8. 

f Vatablus, Prof, of Heb., Paris, on Mark vii. 4. 



48 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

have come in contact with unclean persons, they 
eat not without having first bathed themselves, 
Mark vii. 4, which is not to be understood of 
the washing of the hands, (as interpreted by 
Lightfoot and Wetstein,) but of immersing, 
which the word always means in the Classics 
and the New Testament.* The other ordinary 
lustrations of the Jews were performed in the 
same way.f For by the Hebrew canons, all 
that are unclean, whether men or vessels, are 
not cleansed but by dipping or baptizing in 
water.J And wherever in the law washing of 
the flesh or clothes is mentioned, it means nothing 
else than dipping of the whole body in a laver ; 
for if a man dips himself all over except the tip 
of his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness. 
A bed that is wholly defiled, if he dip it part 
by part, is pure. If he dip the bed in the pool, 
although its feet are plunged in the thick clay 
at the bottom of the pool, it is clean. What 
shall he do with a pillow or bolster of skin ? 
He must dip them and lift them out by the 
fringes. § And upon whatsoever any of them 

* Dr. H. A. W. Meyer, Manual on Mark and Luke. 

f Schneckenberger, from Jewish Talmud. See Adkins, p. 10. 
J Ainsworth, on Lev. xi. 32. 

# Rabbi Maimonides, Hilchot. Mikvaal, c. I. § 2. 



AS ILLUSTRATED BY DIVERS BAPTISMS. 49 

(unclean animals) cloth fall, it shall be unclean, 
whether it be any vessel of wood, or raiment, or 
skin, or sack, whatsoever vessel it be wherein 
any work is done, it must be put into water, and 
it shall be unclean until even : so it shall be 
cleansed.* And many other things there be 
which they have received to hold, as the wash- 
ing of cups and pots, brazen vessels and of 
tables, f 

Hence the reason why Christ prescribed im- 
mersion in baptism, from which the several 
figures found in the New Testament are taken, 
seems to have been that some of His first fol- 
lowers were already accustomed to religious 
washings of this kind ; especially the Jews who 
had been used to Levitical washings.J And the 
symbolical signification of the rite of baptism 
was so intelligible that as soon as the Jews saw 
John practice it, they understood what he meant 
by it.§ 

* Lev. xi. 32. 
f Mark vii. 4. 

X Storr and Flatt, Bib. Theo., p. 216. Ward's Ed. 
I Olshausen, Com. on John i. 25, 27. 
4 



XII. 

AS THE DOOK TO THE LOCAL CHUKCH. 

Regeneration admits to the Spiritual Church — baptism to the 
local organization — One being the silent and unseen death 
to sin, and resurrection to life— the other a public burial 
with Christ, and rising with Him to walk in newness of life. 
The invisible Church has no ordinances — the visible has 
two — The Lord's Baptism and Supper. 

APTISM is God's initiatory rite to 
the external privileges of religion. 
This was God's door into His sacred 
Sanctuary. Without undergoing this 
rite no person, old or young, can scripturally 
and properly be identified with the congrega- 
tion of the Lord, nor be canonically entitled to 
its religious privileges. * It was necessary that 
some mark should be devised by which the fol- 
lower of Christ might be distinguished, and by 
consenting to bear which he might give proof of 
his loyalty. Some initiatory rite was necessary, 

* Thorn, on Inf. Bap, pp. 550-562. 

50 




AS THE DOOR TO THE LOCAL CHURCH. 51 

some public formality, in which the new volun- 
teer might take, as it were, the military oath and 
confess his Chief before men. If such a cere- 
mony could be devised, which should at the 
same time indicate that the new votary had 
taken upon himself not merely a new service, 
but an entirely new mode of life, it would be so 
much the better. Now there was already in use 
among the Jews the rite of baptism — and it 
had acquired a meaning and associations, which 
were universally understood (See page 49). This 
ceremony, then, Christ adopted, and He made 
it absolutely binding upon all His followers to 
submit to it.* Our Lord's own Commission 
conjoins the making of disciples with their 
baptism. And the conduct of the Apostles is 
the plainest comment on both ; for so soon as 
ever men, convinced by their preaching, asked 
for guidance and direction, their first exhorta- 
tion was to repentance and baptism, that thus 
the convert should be at once publicly received 
into the fold of Christ, f And if any be so 
impudent a^ to say, it is not the meaning of 
Christ, that baptizing should immediately, 
without delay, follow discipling, they are con- 

* Ecce Homo, pp. 95, 96. 

t Smith's Bib. Die. Am. Ed. p. 236. 



52 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

fiited by the constant example of Scripture.* 
Then they that gladly received His word were 
baptized ; and the same day there were added 
unto them about three thousand souls.f Thus 
the Sacrament of baptism was regarded as the 
door of entrance into the Christian Church, and 
was held to be so indispensable that it could not 
be omitted even in the case of St. Paul — who 
although he had been called. to the apostleship 
by the direct intervention of Christ Himself, yet 
he was commanded to receive baptism at the 
hands of a simple disciple. % Hence how ex- 
cellent soever any man's character is, he must be 
baptized before he can be looked upon as com- 
pletely a member of the church of Christ. § 
And what man dare go in a way which hath 
neither precept nor example to warrant it, from 
a way that hath a full current of both? Yet 
they that will admit members into the visible 
church without baptism, do so. || In vain too, 
should we argue that we may institute other 
rites and ceremonies. Tf For one baptism is 

* Baxter's Plain Scrip. Proof, p. 126. 
f Acts ii. 41. 

% Couybeare and Howson, Vol. I. p. 438, 
g Dr. P. Doddridge, Lectures, p. 508. 
|| Baxter's Plain Scrip. Proof, p. 24. 
% Dr. King on Presb. Ch. Gov. p. 20, 



AS THE DOOR TO THE LOCAL CHURCH. 53 

spoken of, as also one faith, because of the doc- 
trine respecting the initiation, being one in all 
the church, which has been taught to baptize 
with invocation of the Trinity, and to symbolize 
the Lord's death and resurrection by the sinking 
down and coming up.* 

* Anonymous. 



XIII. 

AS BELATED TO THE LORD ? S SUPPER. 

Both ordinances of the Church, 1 Cor. ii. 2.— One is initia- 
tive, Acts ii. 41.— The other commemorative, 1 Cor. ii. 24, 
25.— Baptism then is prerequisite, Acts ii. 42, 46. 




EFORE entering upon the argument 
before us, it is but just to remark that 
in one principle the Baptist and Pedo- 
baptist churches agree. They both 
agree in rejecting from the communion of the 
table of the Lord, and denying the rights of 
church fellowship to all who have not been bap- 
tized. Valid baptism the Baptists consider 
essential to constitute visible church member- 
ship. This also we hold. The only question, 
then, that here divides us is, What is essential 
to valid baptism ? The Baptists, in passing the 
sentence of disfranchisement upon all other 
Christian churches, have only acted upon a prin- 
ciple held in common with all other Christian 
churches, viz., that baptism is essential to church 
membership. According to their views of bap- 
tism they certainly are consistent in restricting 
54 



AS RELATED TO THE LORD'S SUPPER. 55 

thus their communion. And herein they act 
upon the same principle as other churches, i. e., 
they admit only those whom they deem bap- 
tized persons to the communion table. Of course 
they must be their own judges as to what bap- 
tism is. It is evident that according to our 
views of baptism, we can admit them to 
our communion ; but with their views of bap- 
tism, it is equally evident they can never recip- 
rocate the courtesy. And the charge of close 
communion is no more applicable to the Baptists 
than to us, inasmuch as church fellowship with 
them is determined by as liberal principles as it 
is with any other Protestant churches ; so far, I 
mean, as the present subject is concerned.* Did 
we hold that only believers who have been im- 
mersed are baptized we should practice strict 
communion, and we should almost regard it an 
insult to be required to give it up without a 
change of views on the subject of baptism. 
We as Pedobaptists are also ' close commu- 
nionists/ and we hope we shall never cease to be 
be such. The only legitimate subject of contro- 
versy between us and the Baptists, are the sub- 
jects and mode of baptism.^ Open communion 

* Dr. Hibbard, (Methodist), on Bap., part 2, p. 174. 
f Editor Congregationalist Journal. 



56 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

is an absurdity when it means communion with 
the unbaptized. I would not for a moment 
consider a proposition to admit an unbaptized 
person to the communion, and can I ask a Bap- 
tist so to stultify himself and ignore his own 
doctrine, as to ask me to commune with him, 
while he believes I am unbaptized ? Let us 
have unity indeed, but not at the expense of 
principle, and let us not ask the Baptist to 
ignore, or be inconsistent with, his own doctrine. 
Neither let us make an outcry at his i close con- 
munion/ which is but faithfulness to principle, 
until we are prepared to be open communionists 
ourselves, from which stupidity may we be for- 
ever preserved.* Among all the absurdities 
that ever were held, none ever maintained that 
any person should partake of the communion 
before he was baptized. f It is certain that 
Christians in general have always been spoken 
of, by the most ancient fathers, as baptized 
persons ; and it is also certain, that as far as our 
knowledge of primitive antiquity reaches, no 
unbaptized person received the Lord's Supper.J 
But it was limited strictly to " those who had 

* Am. Presbyterian. 

f Dr. Wall, (Episcopal), Hist. Inf. Bap., Part 2, ch. 9. 

% Dr. Philip Doddridge, (Cong.), Lectures, p. 511. 



RELATED TO THE LORD'S SUPPER. 57 

• 

embraced the gospel, and bad been baptized into 
the faith of Christ*" For looking upon the 
Lord's Supper as the highest and most solemn 
act of religion, they thought they could never take 
care enough in the dispensing of it.* It is, there- 
fore, an indispensable qualification for this ordi- 
nance that the candidate for communion be a mem- 
ber of the visible church of Christ in full stand- 
ing — and by this I intend that he should be a 
man of piety, that he should have made a public 
profession of religion, and that he should have 
been baptizedf — because baptism is the first 
among the sacraments, and the door of the sacra- 
ments.J I agree, then, with the advocates of 
close communion in two points : 1. That bap- 
tism is the initiatory ordinance which introduces 
into the visible church ; of course, where there 
is no baptism, there are no visible churches. 
2. That we ought not to commune with those 
w T ho are not baptized, and of course, are not 
church members, even if we regard them as 
Christians.§ Hence if I believed with the Bap- 
tists, that none are baptized but those who are 

* Dr. Cave, Prim. Chr'ty, part I., ch. xi., p. 333. 
t Dr. Dwighf s Syst. Theol., Ser. 160, B. S. ch. 4, sec. 7. 
% Bonaventure, Apud, Forbesium, Inst. Historic Theol. 
Lib. x., Cap. IV., sec. 9. 

§ Dr. Griffin, Letter on Bap., cited by Curtis, p. 125. 



58 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

immersed on profession of faith, then I should 
with them refuse to commune with any others.* 

We have then arrived at the conclusion that 
all, without exception or limitation, all who repent 
and believe, and are baptized, and only they, are 
fit subjects for the Lord's Supper, f That bap- 
tism was always precedent to the Lord's Supper, 
and none were admitted to receive the eucharist 
till they were baptized. This is so obvious to 
every man that it needs no proof: if any one 
doubts it, he may find it clearly asserted in the 
Second Apology of Justin Martyr, p. 97. J 

Then, as to open communionism. — Let men 
pretend what they can for such a hotch-potch 
communion in their churches, I steadfastly be- 
lieve the event and issue of such practices will, 
sooner or later, convince all gainsayers, that it 
neither pleaseth Christ, nor is any way promo- 
tive of true or gospel holiness in the churches of 
God's people. I shall never be reconciled to 
that charity, which, in pretence of peace and 
moderation, opens the Church's door to church- 
disjointing principles. § 

* Dr. John Hall, (Presb.). 

f Am. Tract Society, Duty of the Pious Inquirer, p. 3. 

J Peter King, Lord High Chancellor of Eng., Prim. Ch., 
p. 196. 

§ By an Independent on the Sin and danger of admitting 
Anabaptists to the Congregational Communion, &c. 



XIV, 



AS TO ITS NATURE FROM BAPTIZO, 




HE term baptism is derived from the 
Greek word bapto, from which term 
is formed baptizo* It signifies ge- 
nerally an immersion of whatever 
hind, and done on whatever occasion. But 
when this name was employed to designate the 
great initiatory rite of the Christian religion, 
and more especially when the habit was firmly 
established of speaking of this rite, as ho baptisma 
(the baptism), this term, however wide and 
various the application of it may have previously 
been, never suggested the idea of any other 
dipping than that which took place at the 
ministration of this sacrament, f The primary 
signification of the original then is to dip, to 
plunge, immerse.J Still, some may be disposed 
to consider this as not altogether certain. They 
may perhaps maintain, that the idea of bap — 



* Coleman's Ancient Christianity, p. 372. 
f Dr. Chalmers' Inst. Theol. on Rom. vi. 4. 
X Coleman, as above. * 



59 



60 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

the original etymological root of the verbs — was 
to tinge, dye, or color; and that the idea of 
plunging or dipping was derived from this, 
because, in order to accomplish the work of 
dyeing, the act of plunging or dipping was 
necessary. But, as the idea of plunging or im- 
mersing is common to both the words bapto and 
baptizo, while that of dyeing or coloring belongs 
only to bapto, it would seem altogether probable, 
that the former signification is the more usual 
and natural one, and, therefore, more probably 
the original one. 

In the JSTew Testament, there is one other 
marked distinction between the use of these 
verbs. Baptizo and its derivatives are exclusively 
employed, when the rite of baptism is to be 
designated in any form whatever ; and in this 
case, bapto seems to be purposely, as well as 
habitually, excluded.* Why? The verb bap- 
tizo has only one acceptation. It literally and 
perpetually signifies to plunge.f It is not, like 
this latter word, used to designate the idea of 
coloring or dyeing.% The distinctive character- 
istic of the institution of baptism is then, immer- 

*Prof. Moses Stuart on Bap. Nashville Ed., pp. 43-51. 
t Stourdza, Alex. De, Russian State Councillor. 
t Prof. M. Stuart, p. 51. 



AS TO ITS NATURE FROM BAPTIZO. 61 

sion, baptisma, which cannot be omitted without 
destroying the mysterious sense of the sacra- 
ment, and contradicting, at the same time, the 
etymological signification of the word which 
serves to designate it. Baptism and immersion 
are, therefore, identical, and to say : baptism by 
aspersion, is as if one should say, immersion by 
aspersion, or any other absurdity of the same 
nature.* The word corresponds, in significa- 
tion, with the German taufen, to sink in the 
deep.f Thus we perceive how baptism was 
administered among the ancients ; for they im- 
mersed the whole body in water. J Yet I have 
heard a disputant, in defiance of etymology and 
use, maintain that the word, rendered in the 
New Testament, baptizo, means more properly 
to sprinkle than to plunge ; and in defiance of 
all antiquity, that the former method was the 
earliest, and for many centuries the most general 
practice in baptizing. But one who argues in 
this manner never fails, with persons of know- 
ledge, to betray the cause he would defend ; and 
though, with respect to the vulgar, bold asser- 
tions generally succeed as well as arguments, 

*Alex. De Stourdza, as above. 

| Brenner, Rom. Cath. 

% John Calvin, on John iii. 23. 



62 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

and sometimes better, yet a candid mind will 
disdain to take the help of a falsehood even in 
support of the truth.* JSTo scholar could, with- 
out injury to his reputation, give the significa- 
tion to sprinkle to baptizo.f As, to purify : the 
theory is very beautiful, but it wants bottom. J 
Never, even in a solitary instance, have we 
encountered it in the sense of purification^ 



CONSTRUED WITH PREPOSITIONS. 

Baptizo, construed with the preposition eis, is 
to immerse into.\\ Into being the original and 
proper signification of the preposition,^ after 
verbs of motion of any kind.** Hence to prefer a 
different meaning, appears very like going out 
of one's way to serve a purpose, ft 

En is, in accordance with the meaning of 
baptizo, (immerse), not to be understood instru- 
mentally (as by or with), but on the contrary as 

* Dr. G. Campbell of Scotland, Lee. on Pulp. Eloq., p. 480. 

fProf. Chas, Anthon (Episcopal). 

J Prof. M. Stuart, Bap. Bal. 

I Prof. Wilson (Presb.). on Bap., p. 184. 

|| Dr. E. Robinson, N. T. Greek Lexicon. 

\ Dr. Dwight, on Matt, xxviii. 19. 

**Prof. Wilson on Bap., p. 330. 

ft Meyer, Corn. Matt. iii. 11. 



AS TO ITS NATUKE FROM BAPTIZO. 63 

in, in the sense of the element wherein the im- 
mersion takes place. * 

While eh strictly and properly contemplates 
the point of departure as within the object 
denoted by its regimen. This is demonstrated 
by our more philosophical grammarians, and 
ably maintained by Dr. Carson. f 

Our Saviour, therefore, when He was baptized, 
first went down into the river, was plunged into 
the water, and afterwards came up out of it. 
And it is written (Acts viii. 38, 39), that 
Philip went down with the eunuch into the 
water, and there baptized him ; and it is added 
that the ordinance being administered, they both 
came up out of the water. % Thus the act of 
baptizing is something quite distinct from either 
the going down into the water, or the coming up 
out of it. Both went down and both came up, 
but one only was baptized. § 

* Anonymous. 

t Prof. Wilson, p. 169. 

% Quenstedius, Antiq. Bib., Par. 1, c. iv, Sec. 2. 

§ Anonymous. 



64 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

DEFINITIONS OF BAPTIZO. 

1. Baptizo, to immerse, to dip, Trommius. 

2. To immerse, immerge, submerge, sink, Greenfield. 
i 3. To dip, to immerse, or plunge in water, Parkhurst. 

4. To merge, immerse, to wash, to bathe, Schoettgen. 

5. To plunge under, or overwhelm in water, Stephanus. 

6. To merge, or immerse, to submerge, or bury in water, 

Stephens. 

7. Properly it means to dip, or immerse in water, Stockius. 

8. To dip, to immerse as we do anything for the purpose of 

dyeing it, Scapula. 

9. To dip repeatedly, Liddell and Scott. 

1 0. To baptize is to plunge, Wetstein. 

11. To baptize signifies only to immerse, not to wash, except 

by consequence, Alstidius. 

12. Baptism is an entire action to wit, a dipping, Melanc- 

THON. 

13. To baptize, to merge, to bathe, Schrevellius. 

14. To immerse repeatedly into liquid, to submerge, to soak 

thoroughly, to saturate, Donnegan. 

15. The proper signification of baptize is to immerse, plunge 

under, overwhelm in water, Zanchius. 

16. To baptize, immerse into water, dip, bathe, Schindler. 

17. To plunge, to immerse, submerge, Prof. Post. 

18. Baptizo, I plunge, I plunge into water, dip, baptize, bury, 

overwhelm, Dr. John Jones. 

19. The native and proper signification of baptize is to dip 

into water, or to plunge under water, Leigh. 

20. The Baptists have the advantage of us. Baptism signifies 

a total immersion, Prof. Porson, 

21. Guido Fabricius, To baptize, dip, bathe, 




XV. 

AS CORROBORATED IN HISTORY. 

N the Apostolic age, and some time 
after, before churches and baptisteries 
were generally erected, they baptized 
in any place where they had conve- 
niences, as John baptized in Jordan, and Philip 
baptized the eunuch in the wilderness, and Paul 
the jailer in his own house.* But afterwards 
they had baptisteria, or, as we call them, fonts, 
built at first near the church, then in the church 
porch, to represent baptism's being the entrance 
into the church. Afterwards they were placed 
in the Church itself. They were usually very 
large and capacious, not only that they might 
comport with the general custom of those times 
of persons baptized being immersed, or put 
under water, but because the stated times of bap- 
tism returning so seldom, great multitudes were 
usually baptized at the same time.f It is evi- 

* Bingham, Orig. Eccle., Vol. I., b. 8, c. 7. 
t Dr. Cave, Prim. Chris., p. 1, c. 18. 

5 65 



66 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

dent, then, that during the first ages of the 
Church, and for many centuries afterwards, the 
practice of immersion prevailed; and which 
seems indeed never to be departed from, except 
where it was administered to a person at the 
point of death, or upon the bed of sickness — 
which was considered as not giving the full 
privileges of baptism.* This is so plain and 
clear by an infinite number of passages, that as 
one cannot but pity the w^eak endeavors of such 
Pedobaptists as would maintain the negative of 
it, so we ought to disown and show a dislike 
of the profane scoffs which some people give to 
the anti-pedobaptists merely for the use of dip- 
ping ; when it was in all probability the way by 
which our blessed Saviour, and for certain, was 
the most usual and ordinary way by which the 
ancient Christians did receive their baptism. 
"lis a great want of prudence, as well as of 
honesty, to refuse to grant to an adversary what 
is certainly true, and may be proved so.f For 
we read, not in Scripture, that baptism was 
otherwise administered than by plunging ; and 
we are able to make it appear by the acts of 
Councils, and by the ancient rituals, that for 

* Encyclo. Ecelesiastica, Art. Bap. 

t Dr. Wall, His. Inf. Bap., Vol. ii. p. 341. 



AS CORROBORATED IN HISTORY. 67 

thirteen hundred years baptism was thus admin- 
istered throughout the whole Church as far as it 
was possible.* Indeed, we have only to go back 
six or eight hundred years, and immersi >n was 
the only mode, except in case of the few bap- 
tized on beds when death was near. And with 
regard to such cases, it disqualified] its recipient 
for holy orders in case he recovered. Immer- 
sion was not only universal six or eight hundred 
years ago, but it was primitive and apostolic, 
no case of baptism standing on record by any 
other mode for the first three hundred years, 
except the few cases of those baptized clinically. 
If any one practice of the early church is clearly 
established it is immersion. f The passages 
which refer to immersion are so numerous in the 
Fathers, that it would take a little volume mere- 
ly to recite them. But enough. ' It is/ says 
Augusti, 'a thing made out, viz., the ancient 
practice of immersion. 5 So, indeed, all the 
writers who have thoroughly investigated this 
subject conclude. I know of no one usage of 
ancient times, which seems to be more clearly 
and certainly made out. I cannot see how it is 

* Bishop Bossuet, from Stennet vs. Russen, p. 175. 
f Bishop Smith of Epis. Ch. Kentucky, from Bliss' Letters 
on Bap. p. 24. 



68 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

possible for any candid man who examines the 
subject, to deny this.* For there can be no 
question that the original form of baptism — the 
very meaning of the word — was a complete im- 
mersion in the deep baptismal waters, and that, 
for at least four centuries, any other form was 
either unknown or else regarded as an excep- 
tional, almost a monstrous case.f And it is well 
known that all the Greek and Oriental churches, 
with a population of one hundred millions, 
though adopting the baptism of children, retain 
immersion to this day, as essential to the validity 
of the rite, and as Bunsen remarks, deny that 
there is any efficacy in the Western Roman Ca- 
tholic — form of baptism. J 

As to the question of fact then the testimony 
is ample and decisive. No matter of Church 
History is clearer. The evidence is all one way ; 
and all church historians of any repute agree in 
accepting it. We cannot claim even originality 
in teaching it in a Congregational Seminary. 
And Ave really feel guilty of a kind of anach- 
ronism in writing an article to insist upon it. 

* Prof. M. Stuart on Bap., p 23. Goodwyn & Co's. Ed. 
f London Quarterly Review, from Everts' Law of Bap , p. 
43. 
X New Am. Encyclopedia, Art. Bap. 



AS CORROBORATED IN HISTORY. 69 

It is a point on which Ancient, Mediaeval and 
Modern Historians alike, Catholic and Protes- 
tant, Lutheran and Calvinist, have no contro- 
versy. And the simple reason for this unani- 
mity is that the statements of the early Fathers 
are so clear, and the light shed upon these state- 
ments from the early customs of the church is so 
conclusive, that no historian who cares for his 
reputation would dare to deny it, and no his- 
torian who is worthy of the name would wish 
to. There are some historical questions con- 
cerning the early church on which the most 
learned writers disagree, for example, the ques- 
tion of infant baptism, but on this one of the 
early practice of immersion the most distinguish- 
ed Antiquarians, such as Bingham, Augusti, 
(Coleman), Smith (Dictionary of the Bible), and 
Historians, such as Mosheim, Gieseler, Hase, 
Neander, Milman, Schaff, Alzog (Catholic), hold 
a common language. The following extract 
from Coleman's Antiquities, very accurately ex- 
presses what all agree to. " In the primitive 
church, immersion was undeniablv the common 
mode of baptism. The utmost that can be said 
of sprinkling in that early period is that it was, 
in case of necessity, permitted as an exception to 
a general rule. This fact is so w r ell established 



70 CHEISTIAN BAPTISM 

that it were needless to adduce authorities in 
proof of it." As one further illustration we 
quote from SchafPs " Apostolic Church :" " As 
to the outward mode of administering this ordi- 
nance, immersion, and not sprinkling, was un- 
questionably the original, normal form." But 
while immersion was the universal custom, an 
abridgement of the rite was freely allowed and 
defended in cases of urgent necessity, such as 
sickness and approaching death, and the peculiar 
form of sprinkling thus came to be known as 
" clinical" baptism, or the baptism of the sick. 
It is somewhat significant that no controversy 
of any account ever arose in the church on this 
question of the form of baptism, down to the 
Reformation. And hence it is difficult to de- 
termine with complete accuracy just when im- 
mersion gave way to sprinkling as the common 
church practice. The two forms were employed, 
one as the rule, the other as the exception, until 
as Christianity traveled northward into a colder 
climate, the exception silently grew to be the 
rule. 

As late as the thirteenth century immersion 
still held its ground, as is shown by a passage 
in the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
where the arguments in favor of the two modes 



AS CORROBORATED IN HISTORY. 71 

of baptism are compared, and the conclusion is 
drawn that immersion is the safer because the 
more common form (quia hoc habet communion 
usus). Three centuries later, in the time of the 
Reformers, sprinkling has become common, and 
even quite universal ; though Calvin speaks of 
the different forms of baptism in a way which 
seems to imply that immersion was by no means 
obsolete. So that Dr. Schaff puts the date quite 
early enough, we think, when he says that " not 
till the end of the thirteenth century did sprink- 
ling become the rule and immersion the excep- 
tion." It is to be remarked also that this 
change occurred only in the Western or Latin 
church. In the Greek church immersion has 
remained the rule to the present day.* 

*Prof. L. L. Paine, D.D., Christian Mirror, Aug. 3d, 1875. 




XVI. 

AS PERVERTED INTO A SAYING ORDINANCE. 

APTISM supposeth regeneration sure 
in itself first. Sacraments are never 
administered to begin or to work 
grace. Read all the Acts, still it is 
said : They believed and were baptized.* And 
in the first two centuries no one was baptized, 
except, being instructed in the faith, and ac- 
quainted with the doctrine of Christ, he was able 
to profess himself a believer.^ But the original 
simplicity of the office of baptism had, in the 
third century, undergone some corruption. The 
symbol had been gradually exalted at the ex- 
pense of the thing signified ; and the spirit of 
the ceremony was beginning to be lost in the 
form. Hence a belief was gaining ground among 
the converts, and was inculcated among the 
heathen, that the act of baptism gave remission 

* Dr. Goodwin's Works, Vol. I., Part I., p. 200. 
f Salmasius and Suicerus. 

72 



AS PERVERTED INTO A SAVING ORDINANCE. 73 

of all sins committed previously.* This was 
one of the first departures of the Church from 
the sacred truths of the gospel, and to this vital 
error may be traced much of that ignorance of 
spiritual things, and that intellectual gloom 
which covered the church in the dark ages of 
papal supremacy.f This opinion of the absolute 
necessity of baptism arose from a wrong under- 
standing of our Lord's words : Except a man be 
born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of heaven.! Thus in the old 
ecclesiastical writers we find many extravagant 
and unscriptural assertions respecting the effect 
of baptism,§ e. g. y that although a man should 
be foul with every human vice, the blackest that 
can be named, yet should he fall into the bap- 
tismal pool, he ascends from the divine waters 
purer than the beams of noon.|| That no per- 
son comes to the kingdom of heaven, but by 
the sacrament of baptism. \ And Cyril of Alex- 

* Waddington, Hist. Church, Ch. II. p. 53. 

f Rev. William Phillips, M. E. in Campbellism Exposed, 
p. 18. 

X Suicerus from Pedob. Exam. Vol. ii., p. 129. 

\ Knapp's Clin. Theol., p. 488. 

|| Chrysostom (398), from Isaac Taylor's Anc. Chr'ty, Vol. I. 
p. 236. 

\ Ambrose, A. D., 390. 



74 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

andria went so far as" to say that the water be- 
came changed, by the divine power in the Holy 
Spirit, into an entirely different element. In 
fact among the old Catholic fathers of the Chris- 
tian church there always prevailed very high 
ideas respecting the necessity and advantages of 
baptism. And there are not wanting incautious 
expressions on this subject even among some 
Protestant theologians,* — for instance, that with 
the water of baptism the grace of regeneration, 
the seed of the Holy Ghost, the principle of a 
higher existence, is committed to the soul ; that 
it grows with us as an innate impression of our 
being. And as long as the believer trusts to 
his baptism as the source of spiritual life all is 
well.f That by baptism, we who were by na- 
ture children of wrath, are made the children of 
God. And this regeneration is more than 
barely being admitted into the church. By 
water, then, as a means, the water of baptism, 
we are regenerated, or born again. And if 
infants are guilty of original sin, in the ordinary 
way, they cannot be saved, unless this be washed 
away by baptism.% That baptism wrests the 

* Knapp, Theol. as above. 

f Rev. Wm. Harness, of St. Pancrass Chapel, London, on 
Bap. Reg., pp. 135-138. 

X John Wesley, founder of Methodism. Preservative, p. 
146. Pub. by Am. Gen. Conference. 



AS PERVERTED INTO A SAVING ORDINANCE. 75 

keys of the heart out of the hands of the strong 
man armed, that the possession may be surren- 
dered to Him whose right it is.* 

Now these assertions clearly make baptism a 
saving ordinance; and I know not that any 
Papist ever used stronger language in pointing 
out its importance. f But a more fatal mis- 
take there cannot be than to attribute to baptism 
that change of which it is only the appointed 
sign in the Christian church. It is lamentable 
beyond expression, that professed Protestants 
should require to be combated with the same 
weapons precisely as those employed against the 
worst errors of Romanism. But so it must be, 
while the pestilence of Roman heresy lurks 
within the precincts of a Reformed church. 
As the outward sign of inward cleansing by the 
grace and Spirit of Christ, baptism is a most 
significant and instructive ordinance ; but those 
who would confound, or even identify it with 
the renewing of the Holy Ghost, have quitted 
the doctrine of the Apostle, and substituted in 
its place a mere human invention. It is one 
thing to affirm that Christ has enjoined baptism 

* Matthew Henry, Treatise on Bap., pp. 12, &c. 
f Rev. W. Phillips, as above, p. 19. 



76 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

as an initiatory rite of His kingdom ; it is quite 
another thing, and an error of the most formida- 
ble dimensions, to assert that all baptized per- 
sons are born of the Spirit.* 

* Dr. J. Morrison, Horn, for the Times, pp. 265, 342, 343. 




XVII. 

AS UNSCRIPTURALLY APPLIED TO INFANTS. 

CCORDING to its true, original 
design baptism can be given only to 
adults, who are capable of true know- 
ledge, repentance and faith.* It is not 
to be received then any more than faith by right 
of inheritance.f Hence Scripture knows nothing 
of the baptism of infants. J It is totally opposed 
to the spirit of the apostolic age, and to the 
fundamental principles of the New Testament.§ 
The passages from Scripture cited in favor of 
infant baptism as a usage of the primitive 
Church, are doubtful and prove nothing. || There 
is absolutely not a single trace of it to be found 
in the New Testament. There are passages that 
may be reconciled with it, if the practice can 
only be proved to have existed ; but there is not 

* Prof. Hahn's Theol., p. 556. 

f Dr. Pressense, Apos. Era, p. 376. 

\ Dr. Hanna. 

£ Prof. Lange, Inf. Bap., p. 101. 

|| Hagenbach's His. Doct., pp. 190-193. 

77 



78 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

one word which asserts its existence."* Among 
all the persons that are recorded as baptized by 
the apostles, there is no express mention of any 
infants. f Lydia's household, I know, has been 
adduced in proof of the apostolic authority of 
infant baptism ; but there is no proof here that 
any except adults were baptized. J Baptism 
ensued in this case, without doubt, merely upon 
profession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But 
for that very reason it is highly improbable that 
her house should be understood as including 
infant children. § We cannot, indeed, prove 
that the apostles ordained infant baptism from 
those places where the baptism of a whole family 
is mentioned.|| In none of these instances has 
it been proved that there were little children 
among them.^f And we do freely confess there 
is neither express precept nor precedent in the 
New Testament for the baptism of infants.** 

How unwary, too, are many excellent men, 
in contending for infant baptism on the ground 

* North Brit. Review (Presb.), Aug. 1852. 

f Dr. Wall, His. Inf. Bap. Intro., pp. 1, 55. 

J Dr. De Wette, Com. on Acts xvi. 15. 

§ Olshausen, Com. on Acts xvi. 14, 15. 

|| Neander's Planting and Training, p. 162, N. Y. Ed. 

% Kitto's Bib. Ency., Art. Bap. 

** Fuller, Infant's Advoc, pp. 71, 150. 



AS UNSCRIPTUKALLY APPLIED TO INFANTS. 79 

of the Jewish analogy of circumcision. Number- 
less difficulties present themselves in our way as 
soon as we begin to argue in such a manner as 
this. The Covenant of Circumcision furnishes 
no ground for infant baptism.* Indeed — what 
is the Covenant ? What meaning and force has 
it ? Here we have never agreed, and do not 
now. The Baptists have pushed us for an 
answer — we have given them many answers, — 
but never any single answer in which we could 
agree among ourselves. f In fact, the New Testa- 
ment saints have nothing more to do with the 
Abrahamic covenant than the Old Testament 
believers who lived prior to Abraham. J And the 
sacraments of the New Covenant are of such a 
nature as to seal nothing but what is spiritual, nor 
to be of any advantage, except in regard to those 
who really believe in Jesus Christ. § This is 
the great reason why we cannot believe that 
baptism was administered in the apostolic age to 
little fc children.|| Thus, all attempts to make 
out infant baptism from the New Testament 

* Prof. Moses Stuart, Com. on O. T., chap. 22, and Lee. 
on Gal. 
f BushneH's Views of Christian Nurture, pp. 56-61. 
% Dr. E. Williams on Morrice' Social Eeligion, pp. 312-317. 

I Vitringa in Pedob. Exam., Vol. ii., p. 268. 

II Dr. Pressense, as above. 



80 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

fail.* No instance of it is recorded there ; no 
allusion is made to its effects ; no directions are 
given for its administration ;f it is not brought 
down as a substitute for circumcision. J And 
from the action of Christ's blessing infants, to 
infer they are to be baptized, proves nothing so 
much, as that there is a want of better argu- 
ments^ Indeed all traces of infant baptism 
which one will find in the New Testament must 
first be put into it.\\ And, where the Scripture 
is silent, who shall speak ?^f 

But, neither in the Scriptures, nor during the 
first hundred and fifty years (at least), is a sure 
example of infant baptism to be found ; and we 
must conclude that the numerous opposers of it 
cannot be contradicted on gospel ground.** For 
the early and continued opposition to it would 
have been inexplicable, if it had been an un- 
doubted apostolic institution. ff Though some, 
indeed, have argued that in the silence of Scrip- 



* Prof. Lange, as above. 

t Dr. Jacobi, Church of Eng. Eccle. Pol., pp. 270, 271. 

% H. W. Beecher. 

g Bishop Taylor, Liberty of Prophecy, p. 230. 

|| Schleiermacher. 

1f Ambrose. 

** Prof. Hahn, Theol., p. 556. 

|f Meyer's Com. on Acts, Vol. ii., p. 235. 



AS UNSCRIPTURALLY APPLIED TO INFANTS. 81 

ture, it is fair to presume that a custom whose 
existence is seen in the second century must have 
descended from the apostles ; but the presump- 
tion is wholly the other way. History confirms 
the inference drawn from the sacred volume.* 
There is, I think, no trace of it until the last 
part of the second century, when a passage is 
found in Irenseus, which may possibly — and 
only possibly — refer to it. Nor is it anywhere 
distinctly mentioned before the time of Tertullian 
(204), who 7 while he testifies to the practice, was 
himself rather opposed to it.f A proof that the 
practice had not as yet come to be regarded as 
an Apostolical institution, for otherwise he 
would hardly have ventured to express himself 
so strongly against it. J As an established order 
of the Church, therefore, it belongs to the third 
century, when its use, and the mode of its admi- 
nistration , and the whole theory of it as a 
Christian ceremony, were necessarily moulded 
by the baptismal theology of the time.§ For an 
opinion prevailed that no one could be saved 
without being baptized ;|| which rule, they said, 

* N. Brit. Review, as above. 

f Dr. Jacobi, as above. 

J Anonymous. 

§ Dr. Jacobi, as above. 

|| Salmasius, Epis. Jus. Pac. 

6 



82 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

as it holds to all, so we think it more especially 
to be observed in reference to infants, to whom 
our help and the Divine mercy is rather to be 
granted ; because, by their weeping and wailing 
at their first entrance into the world, they do 
intimate nothing so much as that they implore 
compassion.* It was, therefore, customary in 
the ancient Church, if infants were greatly 
afflicted, and in danger of death, or if parents 
were affected with a singular concern about the 
salvation of their children to present their 
infants, or children, in their minority, to the 
bishop to be baptized.f But nothing can be 
affirmed with certainty, concerning the custom 
of the Church before Tertullian, seeing there is 
not anywhere, in More ancient writers, that I 
know of, undoubted mention of infant baptism, 
though there were persons in his age who 
desired their infants might be baptized, espe- 
cially when they were afraid of their dying 
without baptism; which opinion Tertullian 
opposed, and by so doing intimates that pedo- 
baptism began to prevail.^ 

In the fourth century its validity was generally 

* Cyprian, A. D., 253. 

f Vitringa, Observ. Sac, Vol. i., B. 2, ch. iv., sec. 9. 

% Venema, Eccle. His., Vol. iii., ch. ii., sees. 108, 109. 



AS UNSCKIPTURALLY APPLIED TO INFANTS. 83 

acknowledged, although the Church fathers 
often found it necessary to warn against the 
delay of baptism.* The practice was neither 
uniformly adopted, nor always or everywhere 
observed. This is evident from numerous in- 
stances of persons living in or about the fourth 
century, who were not baptized till after they 
had reached the age of manhood. Such was the 
case with Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Chry- 
sostom, Basil, Gregory ; and among the Empe- 
rors, with Constantine, Constantius — sons of 
Constantine the Great, — Valentian, Gratian, 
Theodorus, and with innumerable other per- 
sons, f Augustine pointed out the removal of 
original sin, and the sins of the children as its 
definite object ; and through his representations 
was its universal diffusion promoted.^ 

In the fifth and following ages it was generally 
received. § The baptism of infants is therefore 
named a tradition. || And this practice which 
Protestants have retained from the Romish 
church, without a due consideration of it, as 
well as many other things which they still re- 

* Bretschneider, Theol., Vol. I., p. 469. 

f Koraes, a Greek Scholar. 

J' Bretschneider, as above. 

§ Curcellus, Instit. Rel. Christ., L. I., c. 12. 

|| Dr. Field, on the Church, p. 375. 



84 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

tain, renders their baptism very defective. It 
corrupts both the institution and ancient usage 
of it, and the relation it ought to have to faith, 
repentance and regeneration.* And, it must be 
confessed that without the authority of the 
Church, the baptism of children could not be 
adequately defended. For there is no example 
in its favor in the Sacred Scriptures; which 
appear, besides water, to demand faith also. 
Hence, it appears to me, that those who reject 
Church authority, cannot sustain the attacks 
of the Anabaptists.f For wise men do easily 
observe that the Anabaptists can, by the same 
probability of Scripture, enforce a necessity of 
communicating infants (i. e. administering the 
Lord's Supper to them) upon us, as we do of 
baptizing infants upon them, if we speak of 
immediate divine institution. J They say it 
is evident that belief or faith must precede 
baptism ; but they add, infants are not capable 
of believing; therefore, neither are they capable 
of being baptized. They boast that the Scrip- 
ture is evidently for Baptist practice — that 
other Protestants hold traditional doctrines, like 

* M. De la Rogue. 

t Leibnitz, (1716). 
X Jeremy Taylor. 



AS UNSCRIPTURALLY APPLIED TO INFANTS. 85 

the Catholics.* While Catholics say — We Ro- 
manists have little to fear from you : the contro- 
versy is not between us and you; it is with 
the Baptists. There are but two parties in the 
contest, ourselves and the Baptists.f 

Would the Protestant Church fulfil and at- 
tain to its final destiny, the baptism of new-born 
children must of necessity be abolished. It 
cannot from any point of view be justified by 
the Holy Scriptures.J 

AS CATHOLICS VIEW IT. 

Q. Can Protestants prove to Baptists that the 
baptism of infants is good and useful ? 

Arts. No, they cannot ; because, according to 
Protestant principles, such baptism is useless. 

Q. Why do you say this ? 

Arts. One of the Protestant principles is, that 
no human being can be justified except by an 
act of faith in Jesus Christ ; but no infant is 
capable of making this act of faith; therefore, 
upon Protestant principles, the baptism of in- 
fants is useless. 

Q. Can you draw the same consequences from 
any other principle ? 

* Roman Cath. Catechism. 

f Bishop Baily of Newark, N. J., to Pedob. Minister. 

t Prof. Lange, Hist. Prot., p. 34-45. 



86 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

Arts. Yes; their first principle is, that 
nothing is to be practiced, which is not author- 
ized by Scriptural example; but it does not 
appear from Scripture that even one infant was 
ever baptized; therefore, Protestants should 
reject, on their own principles, infant baptism 
as an unscriptural usage. 

Q. How do Baptists treat other Protestants ? 

Ans. They boast that the Scripture is evi- 
dently for Baptist practice — that other Protes- 
tants hold traditional doctrines, like the Catho- 
lics. They quote Matt. chap, xxviii., " Go 
teach all nations, baptizing them/' from which 
they say, it is clear that teaching should go 
before baptism; hence, they conclude, that as 
infants cannot be taught, so neither should they 
be baptized until they are capable of teaching 
or instruction. 

Q. What use do they make of Mark, chap, 
xvi. — " He who believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved ?" 

Ans. They say it is evident that belief or 
faith must precede baptism ; but, they add, 
children or infants are not capable of believing ; 
therefore, neither are they capable of being bap- 
tized. 

Q. What can Protestants reply to this Baptist 
reasoning ? 



AS UNSCRIPTURALLY APPLIED TO INFANTS. 87 

Ans. They may give these passages another 
meaning, but they can never prove that their 
interpretation is better than that of the Baptists, 
because they themselves give every one a right 
to interpret Scripture. 

Q. What inference do you draw from this ? 

Ans. That every Protestant has much reason 
to doubt whether he be baptized. 

Q. How do Catholics prove that infants 
ought to be baptized ? 

Ans, Not from Scripture alone, which is not 
clear on this subject , but from the Scripture, 
illustrated by the constant tradition of the 
church, which, in every age, administered bap- 
tism to infants, and consequently the practice 
must have been derived from the apostles. 

Q. Can Protestants use this triumphant argu- 
ment of tradition against the Baptists ? 

Ans. No; they have no right to use it in this 
matter where it would serve them, since they 
reject it in every question where it is opposed to 
their novel and lately invented doctrines.* 

* An Extract from A Doctrinal Catechism : by Rev. Ste- 
phen Keenan. Approved by John Hughes, D. D., Roman 
Catholic Archbishop of New York, 1851. 




XVIII. 

AS SUBSTITUTED BY POURING AND SPRINKLING. 

ITH infant baptism, still another change 
in the outward form of baptism, was 
introduced — that of sprinkling with 
water, instead of the former practice of 
immersion.* For it is without controversy that 
baptism in the primitive church was adminis- 
tered by immersion into water, and not by sprink- 
ling. So too, the essential act of baptizing in 
the second century, consisted, not in sprinkling, 
but in immersion into water, in the name of each 
person in the Trinity. Concerning immersion, 
the words and phrases that are used sufficiently 
testify ; and that it was performed in a river, 
pool or fountain. To the essential rite of bap- 
tism in the third century, pertained immersion, 
and not aspersion, except in cases of necessity, 
and it was accounted a half-perfect baptism. f 
And controversy arose concerning it, so unheard 

* Fritsch, Bib. TheoL, Vol. 3, p. 507. 
f Venema, His. Eccle., Sec. i. ; ii. ; iii. 

' 88 



SUBSTITUTED BY POURING AND SPRINKLING. 89 

of was it at that time to baptize by simple affu- 
sion.* Immersion in the fourth century, was one 
of those acts that were considered as essential to 
baptism ; nevertheless aspersion was used in the 
last moments of life on such as were clinics, f — 
which Enfinus rightly translates perfusion — 
poured about, for those who are sick, w T ere baptized 
in bed. Therefore, baptism of this sort was not 
customary, and was esteemed imperfect, as be- 
ing what appeared to be received by men labor- 
ing under delirium, not willingly, but from fear 
of death. In addition, since baptism properly 
signifies immersion, a pouring of this sort could 
hardly be called baptism, therefore, Clinics were 
forbidden to be promoted to the rank of the 
ministry, by the twelfth canon of the Council 
of Neo-Csesarea. % 

Cyprian first defended baptism by sprinkling, 
when necessity called for it, but cautiously and 
with much limitation § — saying to Magnus, 
" You ask, dear son, what I think of those, who, 
in sickness receive the sacred ordinance ; whether, 
since they are not washed (loti) in the saving water, 
but have it poured on them, (perfusi) they are to 

* Knapp's Theo., p. 487. 

f Venema, as above. 

X Valesius, from R. Fuller on Bap., p. 81. 

§ Knapp, as above. 



90 CHKISTIAN BAPTISM 

be esteemed right Christians. In the saving sac- 
raments, when necessity obliges, and God grants 
His indulgence, abridgements of divine things, 
(divina compendia), will confer the whole on be- 
lievers."* By degrees, however, this mode of 
baptism became more customary, probably be- 
cause it was found more convenient ; especially 
was this the case after the seventh century, and in 
the Western Church, but it did not become uni- 
versal (even there) until the commencement of 
the fourteenth century.^ 

The first law for sprinkling was obtained in the 
following manner : Pope Stephen II. being dri- 
ven from Rome by Astolphus, King of Lombards, 
in 753, fled to Pepin, who a short time before 
had usurped the crown of France. While he re- 
mained there, the monks of Cressy, in Brittany, 
consulted him, whether, in case of necessity, bap- 
tism performed by pouring water on the head of 
the infant would be lawful. Stephen replied that 
it would. But though the truth of this fact 
should be allowed, which, however, some Cath- 
olics deny, yet pouring or sprinkling was admit- 
ted only in cases of necessity. It was not till the 
year 1311 that the Legislature, in a Council held 

* Cyprian. 

f Knapp, as above. . 



SUBSTITUTED BY POURING AND SPRINKLING. 91 

at Ravenna, declared immersion or sprinkling to 
be indifferent.* France seems to have been the 
first country where baptism by affusion was used 
ordinarily to persons in health, and in the public 
way of administering it.f In this country (Scot- 
land), however, sprinkling was never practiced in 
ordinary cases till after the Reformation ; and in 
England, even in the reign of Edward VI. im- 
mersion was commonly observed. But during 
the persecution of Mary, many persons, most of 
whom were Scotchmen, fled from England to Ge- 
neva, and there greedily imbibed the opinions of 
that Church. In 1556 a book w^as published at 
that place, containing the form of prayers and 
ministrations of sacraments, approved by the fa- 
mous and godly man, John Calvin, in which the 
administrator is enjoined to take water in his hand 
and lay it on the child's forehead. These Scot- 
tish exiles who had renounced the authority of the 
Pope, implicitly acknowledged the authority of 
Calvin ; and returning to their own country with 
John Knox at their head, in 1559, established 
sprinkling in Scotland. From Scotland this prac- 
tice made its w r ay into England in the reign of 
Elizabeth, but was not authorized by the estab- 

* Edinburgh Ency., Ed. by Sir David Brewster. Art. Bap. 
t Dr. Wall, His. Inf. Bap., Part 2, ch. 9. 



92 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

lished Church.* It being allowed to weak chil- 
dren, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to be bap- 
tised by aspersion, many fond ladies and gentle- 
women fir st y Rndithen by degrees the common peo- 
ple, would obtain the favor of the Priest to have 
their children pass for weakly children, too tender 
to endure dipping in the water. As for sprink- 
ling properly so called, it was, at 1645, just then 
beginning, and used by very few. It must have 
begun in the disorderly times of forty-one (1641). 
They — the Assembly of Divines in Westminster 
— reformed the font into a basin. This learned 
Assembly could not remember that fonts to bap- 
tize in had always been used by the primitive 
churches, long before the beginning of Popery, 
and ever since churches were built ; but that 
sprinkling for the purpose of baptizing was really 
introduced (in France first, and then in other po- 
pish countries), in times of Popery ; and that ac- 
cordingly, all those countries in which the 
usurped power of the Pope is, or has formerly been 
owned, have left off dipping of children in the 
font, but that all other countries in the world, 
which have never regarded his authority, do still 
use it. And though the English received not 
this custom till after the decay of Popery, yet they 
have since received it from such neighbor nations 
* Edin. Ency. as above. 



SUBSTITUTED BY POURING AND SPRINKLING. 93 

as had begun it in the time of the Pope's power. 
For the way that is now ordinarily used, we can- 
not deny to have been a novelty, brought into this 
church (English) by those that learned it in Ger- 
many or at Geneva. And they were not content- 
ed to follow the example of pouring a quantity of 
water, which had there been introduced instead of 
immersion, but improved it, if I may so abuse 
that word, from pouring to sprinkling, that it 
mighthave as little resemblance to the ancient way 
of baptizing as possible.* Hence not only the 
Catholic Church, but also the pretended reformed 
churches, have altered this primitive custom, and 
now allow of baptism by pouring or sprinkling 
water on the person baptized. Nay, many of their 
ministers do it nowadays by fillipping a wet finger 
and thumb over a child's head, or shaking a wet 
finger 01* two over a child ; which is hard enough 
to call baptism in any sense.f The Baptists, in 
fact, are the only denomination of Christians who 
have not symbolized with the Church of Rome,J 
and, with the two exceptions of the Cathedral of 
Milan, and the sect of the Baptists, a few drops of 
water are now the Western substitute^ 

* Dr. Wall, as above. 

f Dr. R. Wetham, Rom. Cath., Annot. on Matt. iii. 6, 

J Newton. 

§ Dean Stanley, Hist. Eastern Church, p. 117. 



94 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

Under these circumstances it is certainly to be 
lamented that Luther was not able to accomplish 
his wish with regard to the introduction of im- 
mersion in baptism, as he had done in the re- 
storation of the wine in the Eucharist.* For if 
we say — The Bible alone is the religion of Pro- 
testantsf — the Catholics reply — Show us, my 
Lords, the validity of your baptism , i by Scrip- 
ture alone/ Jesus Christ there ordains that it 
shall be conferred, not by pouring water on the 
heads of believers, but by believers being plunged 
into water. The word baptizo employed by 
the Evangelists, strictly conveys this signification, 
as the learned are agreed ; and at the head of 
them Casaubon, of all the Calvinists, the best 
versed in the Greek language. Now baptism 
by immersion has ceased for many ages, and 
you yourselves as well as we, have only received 
it by affusion. It would, therefore, be all over 
with your baptism, unless you established it by 
tradition and the practice of the Church. This 
being settled, I ask you from whom have you 
received baptism ? Is it not from the Church 
of Rome ? And what do you think of her ? Do 
you not consider her as heretical, and even idola- 

* Drs; Storr and Flatt's Theol., Vol. ii., p. 291. 
f Chillingworth. 



SUBSTITUTED BY POURING AND SPRINKLING. 96 

trous ? You cannot, then, according to the 
terms of Scripture, prove the validity of your 
baptism ; and to produce a plea for it, you are 
obliged to seek it with Pope Stephen, and the 
councils of Aries and Nice, and in ApostoJic 
tradition.* 

* Right Rev. Dr. Trevern (Rom. Cath.) ; in La Discussion 
Amicale to Protestant Clergy. 




XIX. 

AS PRESERVED BY THE BAPTISTS. 

HE true origin of that sect which 
acquired the name Anabaptist, is hid 
in the remote depths of Antiquity, and 
is consequently extremely difficult to 
be ascertained.* On this account, the Baptists 
— who were formerly called Anabaptists — may 
be considered the only Christian community 
which has stood since the days of the Apostles, 
and as a Christian Society, has preserved pure 
the doctrines of the Gospel through all ages. 
The perfectly correct external and internal eco- 
nomy of the Baptist denomination tends to con- 
firm the truth disputed by the Romish Church, 
that the Reformation, brought about in the 
sixteenth century, was in the highest degree 
necessary, and at the same time goes to refute 
the erroneous notion of the Catholics, that their 

* Mosheim's Ch. Hist, (Maclaine's), Vol. ii , p. 127. 

96 



AS PRESERVED BY THE BAPTISTS. 97 

communion is the most ancient.* Before Luther 
and Calvin, there lay concealed in almost all the 
countries of Europe many persons who adhered 
tenaciously to the doctrines of the Dutch Bap- 
tists, f and for thirteen hundred years had caused 
great disturbance in the Church. % And, if the 
truth of religion were to be judged of by the 
readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any 
sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and 
persuasions of no sect can be truer or surer, than 
those of the anabaptists ; since there have been 
none (1570), for these twelve hundred years past, 
that have been more grievously punished. § In 
Ponton, Cologne, Germany, Swederland, etc., 
many thousands of this sect, who defiled their 
first baptism by a second, were baptized the 
third time in their own blood. || And in almost 
all the countries of Europe, an unspeakable 
number of Baptists preferred death in "its worst 

* Dr. Ypeij, Prof. Theol., Groningen, and Dr. J. J. Der- 
mont, chaplain to King of Netherlands in Hist. Dutch Bap- 
tists. 

j- Mosheim, Ch. Hist. 

% Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer, from Orchard's Hist., p. 17. 

$ Cardinal Hossius, Chairman at Council of Trent, from 
Orchard's Hist. Baptists, p. 364. 

|| De Featly — The same who, in 1644, entreated the House 
of Lords, that Milton might be cut off, u as a pestilent Ana- 
baptist," 

7 



98 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 



forms to a retraction of their sentiments.* This 
sect had the honor both of leading the way, and 
bringing up the rear, of all the martyrs who 
were burnt alive in England.f And so nu- 
merous were they, and so rigorously persecuted, 
that the records^ show that over seventy thousand 
of them were, in King Henry's time ; punished 
by fines, by imprisonment, by banishment, or 
by burning.^ The Baptists that were burnt in 
different parts of the Kingdom, w r ent to death 
intrepidly and without any fear.§ 

They suffered death, not on account of their 
being considered rebellious subjects, but merely 
because they were judged to be incurable heretics ; 
for, in this century (the 16th), the error of limit- 
ing the administration of baptism to adult 
persons only, and the practice of rebaptizing 
such as had received the sacrament in infancy, 
were looked upon as the most flagitious and 
intolerable of heresies. || 

Thus the party was trodden under foot with 
foul reproaches and most arrogant scorn ; and 

* Mosheim. 

f From Westlake's Gen. View. 

% Strype's History. 

§ Bishop Latimer, Lent Sermons. 

jj Mosheim, Eccle. Hist., Cent. 16, Sec. 3, Part 2, ch. iii. 



AS PRESERVED BY THE BAPTISTS. 99 

its history is written in the blood of myriads of 
the German peasantry ; but its principles, safe 
in their immortality, escaped with Roger 
Williams to Providence ; and his colony is the 
witness that naturally the paths of the Baptists 
are paths of freedom, pleasantness and peace. 
For freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom 
of mind was, from the first, the trophy of the 
Baptists. * 

In accordance with these principles, Roger 
Williams insisted in Massachusetts upon allow- 

Note. — It may be stated that the Baptists believe the 
ordinances should be administered to regenerated believers 
only, not exclusively to adults, but to children also, who give 
evidence of being born of the Spirit, a. And doubtless if 
baptism was not rightly administered with reference to those 
things which belong to the substance of it, it is all one as if 
the person had not been baptized ; and, therefore, he is to be 
baptized and not re-baptized, b. And respecting the form of 
baptism the impartial historian is compelled by exegesis and 
history substantially to yield the point to the Baptists, as is 
done in fact by most German scholars, c. Hence, " If the 
Baptists are historically right, and we wrong, let us discon- 
tinue our disputes with them as to the meaning of Greek 
verbs, and give due honor to the original mode of baptism 
both by our preaching and practice."^. 
Note (a) Imperial Die. (English). 

(b) Buddeus, Theol. Dog., i., v., c. 1, § 10. 

(c) Dr. P. Schaff, Hist. Apo. Ch. p. 568. 

(d) Rev. A. L. Park, in Christian Mirror, June 29th, 1875 • 
* Bancroft's Hist. U. States. 



100 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

ing entire freedom of conscience, and upon entire 
separation of the Church and the State. But he 
was obliged to flee, and in 1636 he formed in 
Rhode Island, a small and new society, in which 
perfect freedom in matters of faith was allowed, 
and in which the majority ruled in all civil 
affairs. Here, in a little State, the fundamental 
principles of political and ecclesiastical liberty 
practically prevailed, before they were even 
taught in any of the schools of philosophy in 
Europe. At that time people predicted only a 
short existence for these democratical experi- 
ments. But not only have these ideas and these 
forms of government maintained themselves 
here, but, precisely from this little State, have 
they extended themselves throughout the United 
States. They have conquered the aristocratic 
tendencies in Carolina and New York, the High 
Church in Virginia, the theocracy in Massa- 
chusetts, and the monarchy in all America. 
They have given laws to a continent, and, for- 
midable through their moral influence, they lie 
at the bottom of all the democratic movements which 
are noxo shaking the nations of Europe* Thus 

* German Philosopher, Gervinus, Introd. to His., 19th Cen- 
tury. 



AS PRESERVED BY THE BAPTISTS. 101 

he began the first civil government on the earth 
which gave equal liberty of conscience. * 

To conclude then — The Baptists are a people 
very fond of religious liberty, and very unwill- 
ing to be brought under bondage of the judg- 
ment of others, f As regards their form of go- 
vernment, they are, as every one knows Inde- 
pendents, who perform the rite of baptism, like 
the primitive Christians, by immersion. J Their 
origin is hid in the depths of antiquity. § They 
have preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel 
through all ages.|| They are the only denomi- 
nation of Christians who have not symbolized 
with the Church of Rome. If And let it never 
be forgotten of the particular Baptists of Eng- 
land that they form the denomination of Fuller, 
and Carey, and Ryland, and Hall, and Foster ; 
that they have originated one among the greatest 
of all missionary enterprises ; that they have en- 
riched the Christian literature of our country 
with authorship of the most exalted piety, as 

* Southey. 

t Baily in 1639. 

J Dr. Bunsen, On Signs of the Times. 

§ Mosheim, as above. 

|| Hist. Ref. Dutch Ch., Ed. Breda, 1819. 

f Newton. 



102 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

well as of the first talent and the first eloquence; 
that they have waged a very noble and success- 
ful war with the hydra of Antinomianism ; that, 
perhaps, there is not a more intellectual com- 
munity of ministers in our island, or who have 
put forth, in proportion to their number a 
greater amount of mental power and mental 
activity in the defence of our common faith ; and 
what is better than all the triumphs of genius or 
understanding, who, by their zeal and fidelity, 
and pastoral labor among the congregations 
which they have reared, have done more to swell 
the lists of genuine discipleship in all the walks 
of private society, and thus both to uphold and 
to extend the living Christianity of our nation.* 

* Dr. Chalmers, in sermon on Rom. iv. 9-15. 



XX. 

AS FALSELY VIEWED — A PLEA FOR INCON- 
SISTENCY. 

" Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that which 
he alloweth." Rom. xiv. 22. 

" Men are easy enough to consent to a general rule ; but 
they will not suffer their own case to be concerned in it." 

— Bishop Taylor. 




T is said that the lawfulness of any- 
other baptism than by immersion will 
be found to lie in the necessity there 
may sometimes be of another manner 
of administering of it.* That the danger of 
dipping in cold climates, may be a very good 
reason for changing the form of baptism to 
sprinkling, f That the Church claims the right 
to regulate, at her just discretion, whatever re- 
gards the manner of administering the Sacra- 
ments.;!; That the Holy Scriptures speak only 
of baptism by immersion. But the dogma of 

* Dr. Towersonon Sac. of Bap., Part III., pp. 58-60. 

f Bishop Burnet. 

X Archb. Kenrick, from Am. Cyclop., Art. Rom. Cath. 

103 



104 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

the Church is to sprinkle, and we should in this, 
as in everything else, follow the Church.* That 
it is left to latitude, to convenience, to the taste, 
fancy, and preference of all.f That it is of no 
consequence at all whether the person baptized 
is totally immersed, or whether he is merely 
sprinkled by an affusion of water. This should 
be a matter of choice to the churches in different 
regions, although the word baptize signifies to 
immerse, and the rite of immersion was practiced 
by the ancient Church.J That, if experience 
shows a certain ordinance to be good, it is your 
right to adopt it, whether Scripture points it out 
or not.§ That it is not essential to salvation. || 
That if baptism was first administered by im- 
mersion, might not a regard to usage, to decency 
or to convenience, be a sufficient reason for 
varying the mode ?^[ 

Replies. — We cannot think God will honor 
the inventions of men, however they may be 
dignified by the specious names of useful, decent, 

* Roman Cath. Catec. 

f Dr. Cumming. 

J John Calvin, founder of Pres. Ch. 

§ H. W. Beecher in Ser. May, 1864. 

|| General. 

If Dr. L. Woods' Works, Vol. iii., p. 460. 



AS FALSELY VIEWED. 105 

agreeable, or prudent contrivances; yet, if they 
are an addition to His system, will He not say : 
Who hath required these things at your hands f * 
And that principle that the Church hath power 
to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to 
the worship of God, either as to matter or to 
manner, beyond the orderly observance of such 
circumstances as necessarily attend such ordi- 
nances as Christ Himself hath instituted, lies at 
the bottom of all the horrible superstition and 
idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, 
and wars, that have for so long a season spread 
themselves over the surface of the Christian 
world, f 

But to serve God otherwise than He re- 
quireth, is not to worship, but to rob and mock 
Him. J And true philosophy as well as true 
Christianity, would teach us a wiser and more 
modest spirit. It would teach us to be content 
within those bounds which God has assigned 
us.§ As before stated : Nothing is a privilege 
in the religious sense, but what God has made 
such ; and He has made nothing such, except in 

* Archibald Hall's View of Gospel Church, p. 82. 

f Dr. Owen's Sermon. 

% B'p Reynolds' Works, p. 163. 

§ Lord Lyttelton, Conv. of Paul, p. 67. 



106 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

His own way, and on His own terms. Baptism 
is a privilege when administered and received 
in the manner appointed by Him, but r in no 
other. When this ordinance is received in any 
other manner, it is plainly no obedience to any 
command of His, and therefore, let me add, has 
no encouragement to hope for a blessing.* If 
it can be obeyed, it must; if it cannot, it must 
be let alone. It is that in which God will so 
perfectly be obeyed that He will not be disputed 
with, or inquired of, why and how, but just ac- 
cording to the measures set down ; so and no 
more, and no less, and no otherwise, f The law 
of the Lord is perfect.J The Scripture cannot 
be broken. § Hence God has absolutely pro- 
hibited all men, under severe denunciations, 
and with terrible expressions of His anger, 
either to form religious institutions, or to sub- 
stitute their own institutions for His.|| Rev. 
xxii. 18, 19. As we must take heed that we 
do not add the fancies of men to our Divine 
religion, so we must take equal care that we do 

* Dr. Dwight's Sermons, Vol. iv., p. 343. 

t B'p Taylor's Due. Dub., b. ii., e. iii., § 14, 18. 

J Ps. xix. 7. 

§ John x. 35. 

|| Dr. Dwight. 



AS FALSELY VIEWED. 107 

not curtail the appointments of Christ.* For it 
is an impious and dangerous thing to affix God's 
name to our own imaginations, f 

But some may say, Surely God will not be so 
much concerned with a failure in so small a 
punctilio as a ceremony ! True, it is a ceremony ; 
but it is such a one that beareth the stamp and 
authority of the Lord Jesus. If He appoints 
it, will you slight it, and say, It is but a cere- 
mony? Tell me, was circumcision any more 
than a ceremony? Yet it had almost cost 
Moses his life for neglecting to circumcise his 
son. 

But I am regenerate, and become a new crea- 
ture; I do not fear that God will cast me away 
for the disuse of a ceremony. Is this the reason- 
ing of one regenerate ? Surely thou dost not 
understand what regeneration meaneth. When 
you have considered this, then tell me what you 
think of this kind of reasoning ; I am a child of 
God, therefore I will presume to disobey Him.\ 
Why ! Christian ordinances are designed for 
Christian people; for persons who are already 
saved by grace. But does it therefore follow 

* Watts' Humble Attempt, p. 62. 

f Br. Owen on Heb. 

% Wadsworth on Lord's Supper, pp. 243, 244. 



108 CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 

that an ordinance, established by Christ, has no 
important end to answer, and may safely be 
despised ?* God is infinitely better able than 
we are to judge of the propriety and usefulness 
of the things He institutes ; and it becomes us 
to obey with humility and reverence.f 

The conclusion of the whole matter is, " Fear 
God and keep His Commandments."! 

* Dr. J. Campbell, Jethro, p. 235. 
t Dr. S. Clark, Exp. Ch. Cat, p. 306. 
% Scripture. 



AUTHORS QUOTED. 



1 Ainsworth. 

2 Alford, Dean. 

3 Alstidius. 

4 Alting, J., D. D. 

5 Ambrose (A. D. 390). 

6 Am. Tract Soc. Pub. 

7 Am. Presbyterian. 

8 Anthon, Prof. Charles, Columbia College, N. Y. 

9 Baily (1639). 

10 Baily, Bishop. 

11 Bancroft, U. S. Historian. 

12 Barnes, Albert, D. D. 

13 Baumgarten. 

14 Baxter, K. chard. 

15 Beecher, H. Ward. 

16 Bengel, J. Albert, Author of Gnomon. 

17 Benson, Dr. G. 

18 Bingham. 

19 Bickersteth, E. 

20 Bloomfield, Author Greek Test. 

21 Bonaventure. 

22 Bossuet, Bishop. 

23 Brenner, Eom. Cath. 

24 Bretschneider. 

25 Buddeus. 

109 



110 AUTHORS QUOTED. 

26 Bunsen, Dr. 

27 Burnet, Bishop. 

28 Burns, J. D., D. D. 

29 Bushnell, Horace, D. D. 

30 Calvin, John, Founder of Presbyterian Church. 

31 Campbell, Dr. G. 

32 Campbell, Dr. J. 

33 Casaubon. 

34 Cave, Dr. 

35 Chalmers, Dr. 

36 Clark, Dr. Adam. 

37 Clark, Dr. Samuel. 

38 Chillingworth. 

39 Chrysostom, (A. D. 398). 

40 Coleman. 

41 Conybeare. 

42 Cumming, Dr. 

43 Cranmer, Archbishop. 

44 Conder, Kev. J. 

45 Curcellus, Prof, of Divinity, Geneva. 

46 Cyprian, (A. D. 253). 

47 Cyril, (A. D. 374). 

48 Dermont, Dr. J. J. Chaplain to King of Netherlands. 

49 Doddridge, Philip, D. D. 

50 Dodwell, Dr. H. 

51 Donnegan, Author Lex. 

52 Douay Testament. 

53 D'Outreinius. 

54 Dwight, Dr. 

55 Ecce Homo. 

56 Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica. 

57 Editor Congregationalist. 

58 Edinburgh Reviewers. 

59 Edinburgh Cyclopedia. 

60 English Imp. Die. 



AUTHORS QUOTED. Ill 

61 Elliot, Bishop. 

62 Estius, Horn. Cath. 

63 Fabricius, Guido. 

64 Fairbairn, Dr. 

65 Featly, Dr. 

66 Field, Dr. 

67 Flatt, Prof. 

68 Fritsch. 

69 Fuller,JAdv.?Inf. 

70 Gataker. 

71 Gertlerus. 

72 Ger villus, German Philosopher. 

73 Goodwin, Dr. 

74 Greenfield, Dr. 

75 Griffin, Dr. 

76 Grotius. 

77 Hagenbach. 

78 Hahn, Prof. 

79 Hall, Archibald. 

80 Hall, Dr, John, N. Y. 

81 Halley, Dr. 

82 Hanna, Dr. 

83 Harness, Kev. Wm. 

84 Henry, Matthew. 

85 Hayne's Encyclopedia. 

86 Hervey. 

87 Hibbard, Dr. 

88 Hoadly, Bishop. 

89 Hodge, Dr. I Charles. 

90 Hooker. 

91 Hopkins^Bishop. 

92 Horne's^Introduction. 

93 Howson, Dean. 

94 Hossius, Cardinal. 



112 AUTHORS QUOTED. 

95 Jacobi, Dr. 

96 Jones, Dr. John. 

97 Kenrick, Archbishop. 

98 King, Dr. D. 

99 King, Peter, Lord High Chancellor of Eng. 

100 Kitto. 

101 Knapp, G. C, D. D. Prof, of Theol., Halle. 

102 Koraes. 

103 Lange, Dr. J. P., Prof, of Theol., University of Bonn. 

104 Latimer, Bishop. 

105 Leigh, Dr., Author Critica Sacra. 

106 Liddel and Scott. 

107 Leibnitz. 

108 Lightfoot, Dr. 

109 Lond. Quar. Review. 

110 Luther, Martin. 

111 Lyttelton, Lord. 

112 Macknight, Dr. 

113 Maimonides (Jew). 

114 Mather, Cotton. 

115 Matthies. 

116 Melancthon. 

117 Melville, Dr. H. 

118 Meyer, Dr. H. A. W. 

119 Morrison, Dr. John. 

120 Mosheim, Dr. J. L. 

121 Newton. 

122 Neander, Dr. Augustus. 

123 New Am. Encyclopedia. 

124 North Brit. Review. 

125 Olshausen. 

126 Owen, Dr. 

127 Paine, Prof. L. L., Theol. Sem. Bangor, Me. 

128 Paley, Dr. 



AUTHORS QUOTED 113 



129 Park, Rev. A. L. 

130 Parkhurst. 

131 Phillips, Rev. Wm. 

132 Polhill. 

133 Porson, Prof. 

134 Pressense, Dr. 

135 Quenstedius. 

136 Reynolds, Bishop. 

137 Rheinhard. 

138 Robertson, Rev. F. W. 

139 Robinson, Dr. E. 

140 Roel. 

141 Rouge, M. De la. 

142 Rosenmuller. 

143 Rost, Prof. (German.) 

144 Rom. Cath. Catechism. 

145 Ryle, Rev. J. C. 

146 Scapula. 

147 Salmasius. 

148 Sanderson, Bishop. 

149 Schneckenberger. 

150 Schleiermacher. 

151 Schoettgen. 

152 Schrevellius. 

153 Schindler. 

154 Scott, the Commentator. 

155 Schaff, Philip, D.D., Prof. Theol., Pa. 

156 Smith, Bishop, Ky. 

157 Smith's Bib. Die. 

158 Southey. 

159 Stanley, Dean. 

160 Stacey, Rev. 

161 Stack, Rev. 

162 Stuart, Prof. M. 

8 



114 AUTHORS QUOTED. 

163 Stanhope, Dr. G. 

164 Stephens. 

165 Stephanus. 

166 Stockius. 

167 Storr, Dr. 

168 Stourdza. 

169 Suicerus, Prof, of Hebrew and Greek, Zurich. 

170 Strype. 

171 Sumner, Archb. 

172 Taylor, Bishop Jeremy. 

173 Taylor, Dr. Isaac. 

174 Theophylact. 

175 Tholuck. 

176 Tilenus. 

177 Thorn, Eev. 

178 Trommius. 

179 Towerson, Dr. 

180 Trelawney, Sir H. 

181 Trevern, Eev. Dr. 

182 Turretine. 

183 Valasius. 

184 Vatablus, Prof, of Hebrew, Paris, 

185 Venema. 

186 Vitringa. 

187 Waddington. 

188 Wadsworth, Dr. 

189 Watson, Richard. 

190 Wardlaw, Dr. 

191 Watts, Dr. 

192 Wall, Dr., Vicar of Shoreham, England. 

193 Wesley, John, Founder of Methodism. 

194 Weiss. 

195 Webster and 

196 Wilkinson. 



AUTHORS QUOTED. 115 

197 Wette Dr. De. 

198 Wetham, Dr. R. 

199 Wetstein. 

200 Williams, Dr. E. 

201 Witsius. 

202 Wilson, Prof. 

203 Woods, Dr. L., Prof. Theol., Andover. 

204 Ypeij, Prof, of Theology, Groningen. 

205 Zanchius. 

206 Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer. 



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